RAILROAD 
PROBLEM 


EDWARD  HUNGERFORD 

-!!    I 


THE  RAILROAD  PROBLEM 


Courtesy  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul  Railway. 

An  interesting  illustration  of  rail-power  development.     Notice  the  evolution  of 

is  overshadowed  by  the 


1875. 


1902- 


1898. 


1893. 


1887. 


crude  steam  engine  of   1848  into  the  giant  locomotive  of   1913,  which  in  turn 
er  arrival — electricity. 


Courtesy  of  the  C.  M.  &  St.  P.  Railway. 

Steam,   the   giant   power,   which,   by   welding   our   states   together    with   bands   of 
steel,   has  been  a  mighty   factor  in  the  unifying  of  the  nation. 


The 

Railroad  Problem 


By 

Edward  Hungerford 

Author  of  "The  Modern  Railroad,"  etc. 


Illustrated 


Chicago 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Go. 
1917 


A* 


Copyright 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co. 
1917 

Published  April,  1917 


To 

An  Old  Friend,  and  a  Good  One 

SAMUEL  O.  DUNN 


393752 


Acknowledgment 

T  WISH  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  the 
*•  editors  of  Collier's,  Every  Week,  and 
the  Saturday  Evening  Post  for  their  very 
gracious  permission  to  use,  as  portions  of  this 
book,  parts  of  my  articles  which  have  ap- 
peared recently  in  their  publications.  To  Mr. 
E.  W.  McKenna  of  New  York  is  due  a  spe- 
cial word  of  appreciation  for  his  helpfulness 
in  the  preparation  of  this  book. 

E.  H. 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     The  Sick  Man  of  American  Business     ...  1 

II     The  Plight  of  the  Railroad 5 

III  Organized  Labor — The  Engineer       ....  30 

IV  Organized  Labor — The  Conductor    ....  45 
V     Unorganized  Labor — The  Man  with  the  Shovel  62 

VI     Unorganized  Labor — The  Station  Agent     .     .  77 

VII     The  Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad     ....  90 

VIII     The  Opportunity  of  the  Railroad     ....  105 

IX     The  Iron  Horse  and  the  Gas  Buggy    .     .     .     .  134 

X     More  Railroad  Opportunity 158 

XI     The  Railroad  and  National  Defense    .     .     .     .  181 

XII     The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad 217 

XIII     Regulation 235 

Index   .  261 


Illustrations 

PAGE 

Illustration  of  rail-power  development     .     .     .     Frontispiece 

The  engineer 34 

The  knight  of  the  ticket  punch 54 

The  section  gang 66 

The  station  agent 82 

The  Pennsylvania's  electric  suburban  zone 114 

Electricity  into  its  own .114 

The  Olympian 130 

Ore  trains  hauled  by  electricity 130 

The  motor-car  upon  the  steel  highway 152 

The  adaptable  motor-tractor 152 

When  freight  is  on  the  move .158 

The  Bush  Terminal 166 

Freight  terminal  warehouse  at  Rochester 166 

The  railroad  in  the  Civil  War 182 

The  railroad  "doing  its  bit" 186 

America's  "vital  area".     . 196 

Rock  Island  government  bridge 206 

Railroad  outline  map  of  the  United  States 216 

The  Royal  Gorge 244 


ERRATUM 

The  word  " telephone'' 
on  page  182,  line  2, 
should  read  "  telegraph. " 


THE  RAILROAD  PROBLEM 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  SICK  MAN  OF  AMERICAN  BUSINESS 

a  certain  estate  there  dwells  a  large  family  of 
brothers  and  sisters.  There  are  many  of  them  and 
there  is  great  variety  in  their  ages.  They  are  indif- 
ferent to  their  neighbors;  they  deem  themselves  quite 
self-sufficient.  But,  for  the  most  part  they  are  an 
industrious  family.  They  are  a  family  of  growing 
wealth  —  in  fact,  in  every  material  sense  they  may 
already  be  called  rich.  And  their  great  estate  is  slowly 
beginning  to  reach  its  full  development. 

In  this  family  there  are  several  older  brothers  who 
long  since  attained  a  strength  and  dominance  over  some 
of  the  younger  members  of  the  family.  It  is  one  of 
these  brothers  about  whom  this  book  is  written.  It 
does  not  assume  to  be  a  story  of  his  life.  That  story 
has  been  told  by  abler  pens.  It  merely  aims  to  be  a 
brief  recital  of  his  present  condition.  For,  truth  to 
tell,  this  older  brother  has  come  upon  hard  times.  After 
a  long  life  of  hard  work,  at  a  time  when  his  service 
should  be  of  greatest  value  to  the  estate,  he  has  broken 
down.  He  has  begun  to  fail  —  and  in  an  hour  when 
the  greedy  neighbors  grow  contentious  and  he  may  be 
of  greatest  service  to  his  own  big  family. 

1 


2  The  Railroad  Problem 

The  Railroad  is  the  great  sick  man  of  the  American 
business  family.  He  is  a  very  sick  man.  Doctors  may 
disagree  as  to  the  cause,  sometimes  as  to  the  nature,  of 
his  ailment;  they  may  quarrel  even  as  to  the  remedies 
they  deem  necessary  for  his  recovery.  But  there  is  no 
question  to  the  fact  that  he  is  ill.  Just  at  this  time, 
owing  to  the  extraordinary  and  abnormal  prosperity 
that  has  come  to  the  United  States,  largely  because 
of  the  great  war  in  Europe,  he  has  rallied  temporarily. 
But  his  illness  continues,  far  too  deep-seated  to  be 
thrown  off  in  a  moment.  And  the  recent  extraordinary 
legislation  passed  by  Congress  has  done  nothing  to 
alleviate  the  condition  of  the  sufferer.  On  the  contrary, 
it  has  been  a  great  aggravation. 

I  make  no  pretense  as  a  doctor.  But  in  the  course 
of  ten  years  of  study  of  our  American  railroads  certain 
conditions  have  forced  themselves  upon  my  attention 
—  time  and  time  again.  I  have  had  the  opportunity 
to  see  the  difficulties  under  which  the  railroads  labor 
and  some  of  the  difficulties  which  the  railroads  have 
carved  for  themselves.  I  have  had  the  chance  to  see 
how  a  mass  of  transportation  legislation  has  acted 
and  reacted  upon  these  great  properties.  I  have 
known  and  talked  with  their  employees  —  of  every  sta- 
tion. And  I  have  made  up  my  own  mind  as  to  the  great 
opportunity  that  still  awaits  the  railroad  in  America. 
For  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  the  great  transporta- 
tion organism  of  the  United  States  has  but  scratched 
the  surface  of  its  usefulness.  It  is  this  last  phase  of 
the  railroad  that  is,  or  should  be,  of  greatest  interest  to 
every  American. 


The  Sick  Man  of  American  Business        3 

Within  the  short  space  of  the  pages  of  this  book,  I 
am  going  to  try  to  show  first  the  financial  plight  that 
has  overtaken  the  overland  carriers  of  our  country.  I 
am  less  of  a  financier  than  physician.  But  the  figures 
upon  which  my  premises  are  builded  have  been  obtained 
by  a  veteran  railroader;  they  have  been  carefully 
checked  by  expert  auditors  and  railroad  statisticians, 
and  as  such  they  may  be  called  fundamental. 

Given  first  the  financial  and  the  physical  plight  of 
our  railroads  as  it  exists  today,  we  shall  come  to  an- 
other great  phase  of  its  weakness  —  the  labor  question. 
Partly  because  of  a  disposition  to  put  off  the  real  solu- 
tion of  this  problem  to  a  later  and  apparently  easier 
day,  and  partly  because  of  conditions  over  which  the 
railroads  have  had  no  control  whatsoever,  this  problem 
has  grown  from  one  of  transportation  to  one  of  poli- 
tics—  politics  of  the  most  vexed  and  complicated  sort. 
We  shall  look  at  this  labor  question  from  the  most 
engrossing  angle  —  the  human  one  —  and  we  shall  try 
to  look  upon  it  from  the  economic  and  financial  angle 
as  well.  And  we  shall  reserve  our  real  opinion  as  to 
its  solution  until  we  have  had  the  opportunity  to  look 
from  the  depressing  picture  of  the  railroad  of  today 
to  the  picture  —  by  no  means  conceived  in  entire  fancy 
—  of  the  railroad  of  tomorrow. 

Upon  that  second  picture  we  shall  build  our  opinion 
as  to  the  present  necessities  of  the  railroads.  Because, 
in  my  own  mind,  it  is  only  as  the  railroad  seeks  oppor- 
tunity, as  it  seeks  to  enlarge  its  vision,  that  it  will  be 
given  the  chance  to  live  as  a  privately  owned  and  man- 
aged institution.  It  is  today  close  to  the  parting  of  the 


4  The  Railroad  Problem 

ways,  and  the  men  who  control  it  have  come  now  to 
the  point  where  they  will  have  to  choose  —  the  one 
path  or  the  other.  It  will  no  longer  be  possible  to  delay 
the  decision  of  a  really  vital  economic  question  to  a 
later,  and  an  easier,  day. 

Around  the  bedside  of  this  sick  man  of  our  great 
estate  are  gathered  the  physicians  and  the  nurses.  They 
are  a  motley  lot.  One  of  the  nurses  is  called  Labor, 
and  at  first  thought  you  will  think  him  well  worth  watch- 
ing. Another  nurse  is  more  appealing  at  first  sight. 
She  is  a  slender  spirituelle  thing.  We  call  her  Regula- 
tion. Perhaps  she  is  worth  watching,  too.  Perhaps 
her  ways  should  be  mended.  She  is  not  bad  at  heart; 
oh,  no!  but  she  has  had  bad  advisers.  Of  that  you 
may  be  sure  —  at  the  beginning. 

And  it  is  quite  certain  that  until  she  does  mend  her 
manners,  until  Labor,  the  other  nurse,  does  likewise, 
the  caller  who  stands  around  the  corner  will  not  come 
in  the  sick  room.  The  invalid  constantly  calls  for  him. 
The  man  around  the  corner  is  known  as  Capital.  He 
holds  a  golden  purse.  But  you  may  be  quite  sure  that 
he  will  not  come  to  the  sick  man  and  thrust  the  purse 
within  his  fingers  until  both  Labor  and  Regulation  have 
changed  their  manners. 

There  are  no  two  sides  to  such  an  argument. 

With  which  statement  let  us  turn  from  parables  and 
toward  plainer  speaking.  Let  us  begin  consideration 
of  the  plight  of  the  railroad. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  RAILROAD 

"D  EMEMBER  that  the  Railroad  is  the  big  man  in 
•^-  the  American  business  family,  the  very  head  of 
the  house,  you  may  say.  Sick  or  well,  he  dominates 
his  brothers  —  even  that  cool,  calculating  fellow  whom 
we  delight  to  call  "  the  Banking  Interests."  All  Amer- 
ica pays  toll  to  transportation.  And,  inasmuch  as  the 
steam  railroads  are  its  dominating  form  of  transpor- 
tation, the  entire  country  hangs  upon  them.  In  the 
long  run  this  country  can  prosper  only  when  its  rail- 
roads prosper. 

Do  you  wish  to  dispute  them  ?  Before  the  facts  your 
contention  will  not  hold  very  long.  According  to  the 
last  census  more  than  1,700,000  persons  were  directly 
employed  upon  the  steam  railroads  of  the  United 
States;  some  2,400,000  in  industries  bearing  directly 
upon  the  railroads  —  lumber,  car  and  locomotive  build- 
ing, iron  and  steel  production,  and  the  mining  of  coal. 
It  is  a  goodly  number  of  folk  whose  livelihood,  or  a 
large  portion  of  it,  comes  from  an  indirect  relation  to 
the  railroad.  It  has  been  said,  with  a  large  degree  of 
statistical  accuracy,  that  one  person  in  every  ten  in  the 
United  States  derives  his  or  her  living  from  the  rail- 
road. 

Perhaps  you  are  not  one  of  this  great  family  of  10,- 

5 


6  The  Railroad  Problem 

500,000  persons  —  more  folk  than  dwell  in  the  great 
state  of  New  York,  including  the  second  largest  city 
upon  the  face  of  the  world.  Granted  this  —  then  prob- 
ably you  are  one  of  the  10,000,000  savings-bank  de- 
positors in  the  United  States.  If  you  are,  you  are  an 
indirect  holder  of  railroad  securities.  The  savings- 
banks  of  this  country  have  many,  many  million  dollars 
of  their  savings  invested  in  railroad  bonds.  If  you  have 
not  even  a  savings-bank  account  let  me  assume  that  you 
have  a  life-insurance  policy;  there  are  three  life-insur- 
ance policy-holders  for  every  savings-bank  depositor. 
The  value  of  every  one  of  those  34,000,000  policies  de- 
pends on  the  wealth  that  is  locked  up  within  the  strong 
boxes  of  the  life-insurance  companies.  And  a  very 
great  proportion  of  that  wealth  is  expressed  in  the 
stocks  and  bonds  of  railroad  companies. 

Try  as  you  may,  you  cannot  escape  the  dominance  of 
the  railroad  in  financial  and  industrial  America.  You 
might  have  neither  savings-bank  account  nor  insurance 
policy  of  any  sort,  yet  the  railroad  would  touch  you 
constantly,  through  both  your  income  and  your  outgo. 
If  you  were  a  city  man,  it  would  touch  you  not  only 
in  the  prices  that  you  pay  for  milk  and  meat  and  vege- 
tables, but  for  the  rent  of  your  house  or  apartment. 
As  I  write,  the  entire  East  is  panic-stricken  for  fear 
of  a  coal  famine,  faces  steadily  rising  prices.  The 
production  at  the  mines,  despite  a  scarcity  of  labor, 
has  not  been  far  from  normal.  But  the  railroad  has 
failed  in  its  part  of  the  problem  —  the  providing  of 
sufficient  cars  to  transport  the  coal  from  the  mines  to 
the  consumer.  It  has  been  hard  put  to  find  cars  to 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  7 

move  the  munitions  of  war  from  the  interior  to  the 
seaboard  towns.  And  the  coal  mines,  because  of  the 
lack  of  railroad  cars,  have  been  unable  to  relieve  the 
situation.  So  panic  has  resulted.  Upon  its  heels  have 
come  similar,  if  somewhat  lesser  panics  over  the  con- 
gestion and  lack  of  delivery  of  foodstuffs  —  conditions 
which  have  been  reflected  in  rises  in  the  prices,  if  not 
in  the  value  of  most  foods.  These  prices  already  have 
reached  higher  figures  than  at  any  time  since  the  Civil 
War.  Today  they  are  nearly  even  with  those  which 
prevailed  during  the  dark  days  of  the  sixties.  And 
even  if  they  are  due  directly  to  crop  shortages  and 
abnormal  exports  they  still  are  a  reflex  of  the  railroad's 
intimate  touch  with  every  man,  woman,  and  child  all 
the  way  across  the  land. 

Sitting  on  the  porch  of  his  home  at  dusk,  the  farmer 
looks  out  over  his  broad  acres,  sees  the  great  indus- 
trial aids  that  American  invention  has  given  him  for 
the  growing  and  the  harvesting  of  his  crops  and  forgets, 
perhaps,  that  on  each  of  these  mechanical  devices  he 
has  paid  a  toll  to  the  railroad.  But  when  he  looks  to 
his  wheatlands  he  must  recall  that  it  is  the  railroad 
that  carries  forth  their  crops  —  not  only  to  the  cities 
and  towns  of  the  United  States,  but  to  the  bread-hungry 
land,  far  overseas.  In  those  markets  he  competes  with 
the  wheat  from  lands  so  far  distant  that  they  seem 
like  mere  names  wrenched  from  the  pages  of  the  geog- 
raphy book  —  Argentina,  India,  Australia.  Because  of 
this  alone,  it  is  nationally  important  that  the  steel  high- 
ways which  lead  from  our  seaport  gateways  inland  to 
the  wheat  and  corn  fields  be  kept  healthy  and  efficient. 


8  The  Railroad  Problem 

They  have  become  integral  parts  of  that  broad  national 
policy  which  says  that  the  United  States  is  no  longer 
isolated  or  insular  but  one  of  the  mighty  company  of 
world  nations. 

Will  you  permit  me  for  a  moment  to  enlarge  upon 
this  point  —  this  competition  between  our  farmer  of 
the  West  and  the  farmer  of  the  Argentine  Republic,  of 
India,  of  Australia,  and  of  the  nations  of  the  Baltic 
Sea  in  the  market  of  the  consuming  nations  of  the 
world?  As  the  wheat  fields  of  each  of  these  nations 
are  nearer  tidewater  than  the  wheat  fields  of  the  United 
States,  it  long  ago  became  necessary  for  our  railroads 
to  lower  the  transportation  rate  for  grain  in  order 
that  the  American  farmer  might  not  become  submerged 
in  this  great  international  competition.  That  this  has 
been  done,  a  single  illustration  will  show: 

A  bushel  of  wheat  today  is  transported  from  the  cen- 
ter of  the  great  granary  country  of  our  Northwest  or 
Southwest  to  tidewater  —  an  average  distance  of  1,700 
miles  —  for  27  cents.  This  is  at  the  rate  of  .53  of  a 
cent — a  minute  fraction  over  half  a  cent — per  ton- 
mile.  The  average  ton-mile  rate  in  Great  Britain,  2.30 
cents,  as  applied  to  our  average  grain  haul  in  the  United 
States  of  1,700  miles,  would  make  the  transportation 
cost  of  American  wheat  four  and  one-half  times  as 
much,  or  $1.21.  The  American  farmer  owes  a  far 
greater  debt  to  the  railroad  than  he  sometimes  may  be- 
lieve. He  may  have  suffered  under  the  oppressions 
and  injustices  of  badly  managed  roads  —  may  yet  be 
smarting  from  these  oppressions  and  injustices.  But 
how  much  greater  would  be  the  oppression  and  injus- 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  9 

tice  of  a  high  grain  rate  such  as  I  have  just  shown? 
And  if  such  a  rate  were  imposed  upon  him,  would  he 
be  able  in  an  average  year  to  grow  wheat  at  a  profit, 
to  say  nothing  of  being  able  to  compete  with  it  in  the 
broad  markets  of  the  entire  world? 

A  minute  ago  and  we  were  speaking  of  the  abnormal 
prosperity  of  the  railroads.  The  flood  first  descended 
in  October,  1915.  It  rapidly  mounted  in  volume. 
The  railroads  declared  embargoes,  first  against  this 
class  of  freight  and  then  against  that.  Solicitation 
ceased.  The  bright  young  men  of  their  traffic  forces 
were  set  to  work  helping  the  overworked  operating  de- 
partments, tracing  lost  cars  and  the  like.  The  backs  of 
their  operating  departments  were  all  but  broken.  I 
myself  saw  last  winter  on  the  railroads  for  a  hundred 
miles  out  of  Pittsburgh  long  lines  of  freight  cars  laden 
with  war  munitions  and  other  freight  making  their  slow 
and  tedious  ways  toward  tidewater.  I  saw  Bridgeport 
a  nightmare,  the  railroad  yards  of  every  other  Con- 
necticut town,  congested  almost  overnight,  it  seemed. 
The  New  York  terminals  were  even  worse.  For  a  long 
time  it  seemed  as  if  relief  might  never  reach  them. 

It  seemed  wonderful,  but  it  was  not.  It  seemed  like 
millions  in  railroad  earnings,  but  it  was  not.  Trans- 
lated into  the  unfeeling  barometage  of  percentages  it 
all  represented  but  five  and  one-half  per  cent  on  the 
actual  value  of  the  railroads  of  the  United  States.  And 
that,  compared  with  the  long  season  of  lean  years  that 
had  gone  before,  was  as  nothing. 

Take  the  season  of  years  from  1907  to  1914  —  a 


10  The  Railroad  Problem 

season  for  which  the  statistical  records  are  now  com- 
plete. Despite  the  great  financial  panic  of  1907,  these 
were,  in  some  lines  of  business,  mighty  prosperous 
years.  The  output  of  automobiles  was  to  be  meas- 
ured not  in  hours  but  in  the  very  fractions  of  minutes. 
You  might  figure  the  earnings  of  the  "movies"  well 
into  the  millions  each  twelvemonth ;  they  were  building 
new  theaters  in  all  the  cities  and  the  bigger  towns,  al- 
most overnight  it  seemed.  Manufacturing  and  selling, 
nationally  speaking,  were  up  to  the  average.  Yet  in 
those  very  years,  it  was  necessary  for  some  of  our 
very  best  railroads  —  the  best  operated  and  the  best 
financed,  if  you  please  —  to  dip  into  their  previously 
accumulated  assets  to  pay  the  dividends  which  they 
had  promised  to  their  stockholders,  in  several  cases  to 
either  lower  or  omit  dividends.  And  some  of  the  best 
of  these  were  also  compelled  to  pinch  their  maintenance 
expenses  to  a  point  that  brought  them  close  to  the 
safety  line  in  operation,  or  even  beyond  it. 

And  what  of  the  weaker  roads  —  the  roads  upon 
which  whole  communities,  whole  states,  if  you  please, 
are  frequently  absolutely  dependent?  What  did  these 
roads  do  in  such  an  emergency  ?  The  record  speaks  for 
itself.  The  best  of  these  second-class  railroads  made 
no  secret  of  the  fact  that  they  were  cutting  down  on 
maintenance  in  order  to  pay  their  dividends  or  the  in- 
terest upon  their  mortgage  bonds.  The  worst  of  them 
simply  marched  down  the  highway  to  bankruptcy.  At 
no  time  in  the  history  of  this  country  has  as  much  of 
its  railroad  mileage  been  in  the  hands  of  receivers  as 
today. 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  11 

If  you  are  in  that  glorious  company  of  self-appointed 
patriots  who  violently  proclaim  themselves  at  every 
possible  opportunity  "  anti-railroad,"  you  may  be  ask- 
ing me  now  why  so  many  of  our  roads  have  entered 
bankruptcy.  You  may  be  asking  me  if  it  is  not  due 
in  some  cases  to  bad  location,  and  in  others  to  ineffi- 
cient or  dishonest  management.  I  shall  reply  to  you 
by  saying  that  perhaps  fifty  per  cent  of  the  railroads 
which  are  in  bankruptcy  today  are  there  because  they 
never  should  have  been  constructed  in  the  first  place 
and  because  of  the  financial  management.  The  lack 
of  judgment,  ofttimes  the  sinister  motives  that  brought 
them  into  being  are  now  being  paid  for  and  paid  for 
dearly.  And  in  the  second  place,  I  will  take  no  issue 
with  you  as  to  either  carelessness  or  dishonesty  in 
management  of  some  of  our  railroads. 

"Why  is  it  that  every  investigation  of  a  railroad 
nowadays  shows  such  a  rotten  condition  throughout  its 
affairs?"  asked  a  distinguished  economist  at  a  dinner 
in  Chicago  last  winter. 

E.  P.  Ripley,  the  veteran  president  of  the  Santa  Fe, 
answered  that  question. 

"  It  is  because  a  road  is  never  investigated  until  it  is 
morally  certain  that  its  affairs  are  rotten,"  said  he,  and 
then  told  how  but  one  or  two  rotten  apples  would  send 
their  foul  odors  through  an  entire  barrel  and  so  seem- 
ingly contaminate  its  entire  contents.  Would  you 
blacken  a  whole  company  because  a  few  of  its  mem- 
bers have  erred?  Take  another  instance.  A  club  for 
a  while  shelters  a  genuine  blackleg.  Are  we  to  say 
that,  because  of  this  mere  fact,  its  other  members  are 


12  The  Railroad  Problem 

not  as  good  as  any  of  us?  So  it  is  with  the  railroads. 
You  cannot  point  even  the  finger  of  suspicion  to  such 
properties  as  the  Santa  Fe,  the  Burlington,  the  Penn- 
sylvania, the  North  Western,  or  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  railroads  —  to  mention  a  few  out  of  many,  many 
instances.  These  are  good  roads;  in  some  instances 
because  they  have  been  extraordinarily  well  located,  but 
in  most  instances  because  of  their  continuous  enlight- 
ened management.  Yet  some  of  them  have  been  hard 
put  to  it  of  late  to  maintain  their  dividend  obligations 
to  their  stockholders.  And  many  roads  have  been  com- 
pelled to  lower  or  else  suspend  entirely  the  dividends 
paid  in  the  years  gone  before. 

"How  about  efficiency?"  you  may  interject. 

You  are  not  the  first  to  ask  that  question.  It  was 
asked  several  years  ago  by  a  distinguished  citizen  of 
Boston  —  Louis  D.  Brandeis,  now  a  justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  at  Washington.  In  the  course  of  a  rate 
hearing  in  which  he  appeared  as  counsel,  Brandeis 
asked  the  question,  then  answered  it  himself. 

"I  could  save  the  railroads  of  the  United  States 
a  million  dollars  a  day,  by  applying  the  principles  of 
modern  efficiency  to  their  operations,"  was  his  quiet 
answer  to  his  own  interrogation. 

The  remark  was  a  distinct  shock  to  the  railroad  exec- 
utives, to  put  it  mildly.  Some  of  them  were  angered 
by  it.  The  wiser  ones,  however,  went  home  and  sent 
their  secretaries  scurrying  out  after  all  the  books  on 
the  then  new  science  of  efficiency  that  could  be  found. 

The  more  they  studied  efficiency  the  less  these  wise 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  13 

men  were  inclined  to  anger  against  Brandeis.  Some 
of  them  found  that  they  had  been  practicing  efficiency 
on  their  properties  for  a  long  time  past — only  they 
had  not  known  it  by  that  name.  They  had  been  re- 
building whole  divisions  of  their  lines,  relocating  and 
reconstructing  them  so  as  to  lower  grades  and  iron  out 
curves  —  all  to  the  ultimate  of  a  more  economical  op- 
eration of  their  roads.  A  bettered  railroad  means 
invariably  a  cheaper  one  to  operate.  The  saving  in 
grades  and  curves  —  no  matter  what  may  be  the  initial 
cost  —  means  a  more  than  proportionate  saving  in  fuel 
cost,  as  well  as  in  wear  and  tear  upon  the  track  and 
cars. 

Remember,  if  you  will,  that  one  of  the  biggest  things 
that  efficiency  spells  is  economy.  And  economy  is  al- 
ways a  popular  virtue  in  railroading,  particularly  among 
those  gentlemen  whose  only  interest  in  the  railroads 
arises  from  the  fact  that  they  own  them.  If  greater 
efficiency  meant  greater  economy — well,  perhaps  it 
was  just  as  well  that  that  smart  attorney  from  Boston 
made  his  remark  at  the  rate  hearing,  only  perhaps  he 
might  have  phrased  it  in  a  little  less  violent  fashion. 

That  is  why  a  man  like  Daniel  Willard,  the  remark- 
ably efficient  president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railroad  —  the  man  who  has  done  so  much  toward 
rehabilitating  that  one-time  minstrel-show  joke  into  one 
of  the  best  railroad  properties  in  the  United  States  — 
spent  days  and  nights  reading  every  scrap  about  effici- 
ency that  could  be  brought  to  his  attention,  why  he 
brought  Harrington  Emerson,  one  of  the  best-known 
of  the  efficiency  experts  into  his  own  offices  and  staff, 


14  The  Railroad  Problem 

why,  beginning  with  his  great  car  and  engine  re- 
pair and  construction  shops,  he  is  gradually  extend- 
ing the  principles  of  modern  scientific  efficiency  to 
every  corner  of  the  railroad  which  he  heads.  Wil- 
lard's  example  has  been  followed  by  other  railroad 
executives.  And  it  is  because  of  these  and  other 
efficiency  principles  that  the  best  of  our  railroads  have 
been  enabled  to  crawl  through  the  hard  years  of  the 
past  decade,  without  going  into  bankruptcy. 

It  is  a  gloomy  record  —  these  lean  years  in  Egypt. 
They  came  succeeding  a  decade  of  apparent  prosperity 
for  most  of  the  railroads.  I  say  u  apparent "  advisedly. 
For,  when  you  get  well  under  the  surface  of  things, 
you  will  find  that  even  the  first  six  or  seven  years  of 
the  present  century  were  not  genuinely  prosperous  for 
the  overland  carriers.  Dip  into  statistics  for  a  moment. 
They  are  dry  and  generally  uninteresting  things  but 
nevertheless  they  are  the  straws  which  will  show  the 
way  the  wind  is  blowing.  Look  at  these : 

In  1901  the  net  capitalization  of  our  railroads  was, 
in  round  figures,  $11,700,000,000.  Six  years  later,  or 
at  the  end  of  the  greatest  period  of  material  prosperity 
that  the  United  States  has  ever  known,  this  capitaliza- 
tion had  increased  to  $16,100,000,000  —  approxi- 
mately thirty-seven  per  cent. 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  about  railroad  capitali- 
zation—  a  great  deal  without  knowledge  of  the  real 
facts  in  the  case,  and  a  great  deal  more  with  knowl- 
edge but  also  with  malicious  intent.  These  figures 
speak  for  themselves.  Translated,  they  represent  the 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  15 

expenditures  of  the  railroads  for  permanent  improve- 
ments and  expansions  during  that  busy  seven-year  pe- 
riod. At  first  glance  an  expenditure  of  more  than 
$4,000,000,000  is  staggering.  Yet  what  are  the  facts? 
The  facts  are  that  hardly  one  of  these  roads  expended 
enough  that  memorable  season  to  keep  pace  with  the 
vast  demands  of  the  freight  and  passenger  traffic — par- 
ticularly the  freight — upon  them.  We  experienced 
great  railroad  congestions  during  the  winters  of  1903, 
1905,  1906,  and  1907.  And  the  loss  to  the  large  users 
of  railroad  facilities  because  of  these  earlier  conges- 
tions is  no  vague  thing;  it  can  be  figured  high  in  the 
millions  of  dollars.  And  furthermore  it  can  be  said 
that  there  is  no  period  of  expansion  in  recent  Ameri- 
can commercial  history  that  has  not  been  both  limited 
and  hampered  by  the  lack  of  transportation  facilities. 
What  a  commentary  this,  on  our  so-called  national 
efficiency! 

Today  we  are  just  crossing  the  threshold  of  what 
seems  to  be  an  even  greater  period  in  the  industrial 
expansion  of  the  nation.1  Yet  how  are  our  railroads 


1  "  Not  only  have  the  developments  of  the  last  fifteen  months  disclosed 
the  enormous  productive  capacity  of  the  people  and  industry  of  this 
country,  but  they  have  also  shown  that  when  it  is  being  fully  utilized 
the  facilities  of  the  railroads  are  not  adequate  to  the  demands  which  it 
causes  to  be  made  upon  them.  To  sum  up,  then,  the  industry  and  com- 
merce of  the  country  grew  rapidly  throughout  the  ten  years  ending  in 
1907,  and  almost  throughout  that  period  the  facilities  of  the  railroads 
were  increased  so  rapidly  that  they  proved  adequate  to  the  demands 
made  upon  them.  At  last,  however,  the  traffic  did  catch  up  with  the 
facilities,  the  result  being  the  great  car  shortage  of  1906-1907.  The 
year  1916,  unlike  the  year  1906,  marks  the  beginning,  not  the  approach 


16  The  Railroad  Problem 

prepared  to  meet  their  great  problem?  In  1901,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  they  met  it  by  an  expansion  of 
their  physical  facilities.  But  in  1901  the  railroads  had 
credit.  In  1916  the  credit  of  many  of  them  had  be- 
come a  rather  doubtful  matter.  And  this,  of  course, 
has  been  a  serious  detriment  to  their  expansion  —  to 
put  it  mildly. 

An  analysis  of  the  service,  both  freight  and  passen- 
ger, of  the  railroads  in  the  year  1907,  the  last  of  the 
"big  years"  in  railroad  traffic,  compared  with  that  of 
1914  —  the  most  recent  year  whose  figures  are  available 
—  is  illuminating  in  estimating  railroad  credit  today, 
or  the  lack  of  it.  The  passenger-mile  —  representing 


of  the  end,  of  a  period  of  industrial  and  commercial  activity  and 
growth.  There  will  doubtless  be  a  painful  and  violent  readjustment 
after  the  war  ends,  but  there  will  be  another  period  of  industrial 
expansion  after  the  readjustment  is  passed. 

"  Since  our  railroad  facilities  have  proved  inadequate  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  period  of  prosperity,  will  they  not  prove  inadequate  to  the 
demands  which  will  be  made  upon  them  as  soon  as  the  period  of  read- 
justment is  over.  And  if  they  prove  inadequate  at  the  beginning  of 
a  period  of  prosperity,  what  kind  of  a  situation  will  they  cause  to 
develop  if  industry  steadily  grows  more  active  and  traffic  heavier,  as 
it  did  for  several  years  prior  to  1906? 

"  There  seems  to  be  only  one  rational  answer  to  this  question.  No 
matter  how  favorable  to  a  period  of  prolonged  and  great  prosperity 
other  conditions  may  be,  progress  in  industry  and  commerce  will  be 
sharply  arrested,  and  there  will  not  be  any  long  continuance  of 
prosperity,  if  the  facilities  of  transportation  are  not  greatly  increased. 
The  net  operating  income  of  the  railroads  during  the  year  now  closing 
has  been  unprecedented,  probably  averaging  more  than  six  per  cent 
on  the  investment  in  road  and  equipment.  In  the  past  whenever  it  has 
averaged  over  five  per  cent  there  has  resulted  a  largely  increased 
investment  in  new  facilities.  In  view  of  the  large  net  earnings  now 
being  made  the  expenditures  during  1916  for  new  mileage  and  trackage, 
for  new  equipment  and  other  improvement  have  been  relatively 
small."—  Railway  Age  Gazette. 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  17 

the   progress   of   one   train   over   one   mile   of   track 

—  is  the  unit  of  that  form  of  traffic.    In  1914  the  total 
passenger-miles  had  increased  to  35,100,000,000  from 
the  total  of  27,700,000,000  in  1907  —  or  25.7  per  cent. 
Similarly  the  ton-mile  is  the  unit  of  freight  transporta- 
tion.    As  the  name  indicates,  it  represents  the  carry- 
ing of  one  ton  of  goods  of  any  description  for  a  mile. 
In  1914  the  ton-miles  had  grown  to  288,700,000,000 
from  236,600,000,000  —  or  twenty-two  per  cent. 

But,  as  the  traffic  grew,  it  was  necessary  that  the  rail- 
road should  grow.  Despite  supreme  difficulties  in  find- 
ing credit  it  did  manage  to  invest  some  $4,042,000,000 
in  property  expansions  and  reconstructions  during  the 
seven  years  from  1907  to  1914.  Yet  this  very  money 
must  be  paid  for,  and,  in  view  of  the  gradually  im- 
paired credit,  paid  for  rather  generously.  At  five  per 
cent,  this  expenditure  represents  an  added  annual  inter- 
est charge  of  $202,101,000  to  the  railroads  of  the 
United  States,  a  figure  whose  great  size  may  be  the 
better  appreciated  when  one  realizes  that  it  is  consid- 
erably more  than  half  a  million  dollars  a  day. 

Against  this  increased  outgo  one  must  measure  in- 
creased revenues  for  1914  over  1907,  of  $452,188,000 

—  one  deals  in  large  figures  when  one  speaks  of  the 
earnings  and  expenses  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mil- 
lion miles  of  railroad.    Yet  even  increased  earnings  of 
more  than  $400,000,000  are  not  so  impressive  when 
one  finds  that  operating  expenses  and  taxes  in   1914 
were  $506,888,000  higher  than  in  1907.     And  both 
operating  expenses  and  taxes  are  far  higher  in  1916 
than  they  were  in  1914. 


18  The  Railroad  Problem 

Hold  this  picture  up  to  the  light.  I  have  begun  to 
develop  the  huge  plate  for  you.  Now  study  its  de- 
tails far  yourself.  An  investment  of  $4,000,000,000  — 
more  than  ten  times  the  cost  of  the  Panama  Canal  — 
produced,  at  the  end  of  a  seven-year  cycle,  increased 
transportation  earnings  of  more  than  $450,000,000; 
yet  it  required  $500,000,000,  or  an  excess  in  a  single 
year  of  more  than  $50,000,000,  to  meet  the  pay-roll, 
material  tax,  and  other  costs  of  operating  the  railroads. 
And  in  this  figure  we  have  not  taken  account  of  that 
annual  interest  charge  of  more  than  half  a  million  dol- 
lars a  day  for  the  huge  $4,000,000,000  investment 
fund. 

That  interest  charge  cannot  be  ignored.  Bankers 
demand  their  pay.  Add  the  deficit  in  a  single  year  —  a 
normal  year,  if  you  please.  Here  it  is  —  $54,698,000 
plus  $202,100,000  —  and  you  have  a  total  deficit  of 
$256,798,000.  And  this  is  but  a  single  year.  The 
years  that  preceded  it  were  no  better. 

The  money  that  went  to  meet  these  deficits  was  pro- 
vided from  some  source.  Where  did  it  come  from? 
Most  of  the  big  railroaders  know.  They  will  tell  you, 
without  much  mincing  of  words,  that  it  came  from  pre- 
vious accumulations  of  surplus,  or  else  from  money 
withheld  from  the  upkeep  of  the  physical  property  of 
the  railroads.  Of  this  last,  much  more  in  due  course. 
For  the  present  moment,  consider  that  great  $4,000,- 
000,000  expenditure  between  1908  and  1914  for  addi- 
tions and  betterments.  It  was  none  too  much  —  not 
even  enough  when  one  comes  to  consider  it  beside  the 
great  expansions  in  service  as  represented  by  the  show- 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  19 

ings  of  passenger-miles  and  ton-miles.  And  yet  today, 
as  we  shall  see  in  due  course,  the  railroads  stand  in 
need  of  far  greater  development  and  expansion  than 
ever  before  in  their  history.  Five  or  six  years  ago 
that  supreme  railroader,  James  J.  Hill,  estimated  that 
the  railroads  of  America  would  need  a  further  expendi- 
ture of  $1,100,000,000  a  year  upon  their  properties 
before  they  would  be  in  shape  even  to  decently  handle 
the  traffic  that  would  be  coming  to  them  before  the  end 
of  the  present  decade.  Hill  was  a  master  railroader 
who  stood  not  only  close  to  his  properties  but  close  to 
the  great  territory  which  they  serve.  He  knew  that  the 
states  of  the  Union  which  are  west  of  the  Mississippi 
River  had  been  developed  to  only  twenty-seven  per  cent 
of  their  ultimate  possibilities.  It  would  be  hard  to  state 
the  lack  of  development  of  the  railroads  of  that  terri- 
tory in  exact  percentage.  It  certainly  would  be  a  figure 
far  less  than  twenty-seven. 

If  you  are  a  traveler  at  all  familiar  with  the  Middle 
West  and  the  South;  if  you  are  traveling  steadily  and 
consistently  these  years  over  all  of  their  rail  routes,  you 
must  have  been  convinced  of  their  appalling  condition. 
Many  of  their  main  lines  are  deplorable;  their  branch 
lines  are  unspeakable.  Branch-line  service  in  every  part 
of  the  land  has  been  a  neglected  feature  of  railroad 
opportunity  —  as  we  shall  see  in  due  course.  But  in  the 
Middle  West  and  in  the  South  they  are  at  their  worst. 
If  they  do  not  actually  cry  aloud  from  a  physical  stand- 
point for  reconstruction,  their  service,  or  the  lack  of 
it,  certainly  does.  Yet  the  people,  the  communities,  and 
the  industries  which  are  situated  upon  them  are  entitled 


20  The  Railroad  Problem 

to  a  railroad  service  which  shall  enable  them  to  compete 
upon  an  even  basis  with  the  communities  and  industries 
which  are  situated  upon  rich  and  efficiently  managed 
railroads.  I  feel  that  this  is  an  economic  principle 
to  which  there  can  be  no  dissent.  And  I  think  also 
that  there  can  be  no  dissent  to  the  wretched  plight  of 
many  of  the  roads  of  the  Middle  West  and  the  South  — 
more  particularly  the  Southwest.  In  rough  figures,  the 
prosperous  railroads  of  the  land,  representing  some 
forty  per  cent  of  its  mileage,  are  able  to  give  service 
to  their  patrons;  sixty  per  cent  are  unable  to  render 
a  proper  service. 

But  even  in  the  prosperous  sections  of  the  West  — 
of  the  larger  proportion  of  the  country  —  one  who 
rides  and  sees  and  thinks  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed 
with  another  great  cost,  yet  to  come.  I  am  speaking 
of  the  removal  of  tens  of  thousands  of  highway  grade 
crossings,  in  our  towns  and  cities  and  in  the  open  coun- 
try. Already  a  good  beginning  has  been  made;  but 
it  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  work  which  remains 
to  be  done.  The  coming  of  the  automobile  has  hastened 
the  necessity  of  the  completion  of  this  work.  The  rail- 
roads have  contrived  many  ingenious  and  perfected 
methods  of  safeguarding  their  highway  grade  crossings. 
The  best  of  them  are  most  inadequate,  however. 

The  fact  remains  —  a  fact  that  must  be  particularly 
patent  to  you  when  you  ride  across  Michigan,  or 
Indiana,  or  Illinois,  or  Iowa,  or  any  of  their  sister  states 
—  that  here  is  a  great  and  vastly  expensive  work  await- 
ing the  railroads  of  this  country.  In  the  larger  cities  — 
New  York,  Boston,  Buffalo,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Kansas 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  21 

City,  to  name  a  few  striking  examples  —  many  millions 
have  been  expended  in  this  work  within  the  past  few 
decades.  While  the  several  communities  —  in  some 
instances  the  state  treasuries  —  have  borne  a  portion 
of  these  expenditures,  the  burden  has  fallen  invariably 
upon  the  backs  of  the  railroads.  Fortunately  the  rail- 
roads which  have  succeeded  in  absolutely  eliminating 
many  of  their  highway  crossings  —  and,  in  so  doing, 
reducing  a  large  part  of  their  accident  claims  —  have 
been  the  wealthier  roads.  But  that  is  little  satisfaction 
to  a  community  unfortunate  enough  to  be  situated  on 
the  lines  of  a  bankrupt  road.  The  chances  are  that  its 
grade  crossings,  being  more  poorly  protected,  are  more 
dangerous. 

One  thing  more,  while  we  are  upon  this  subject  and 
are  speaking  particularly  of  this  lack  of  development 
of  the  railroads  of  the  West  and  of  the  Southwest.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that  there  are  but  three  rail- 
roads—  the  Santa  Fe,  the  Union  Pacific,  and  the  South- 
ern Pacific  —  which  have  done  any  considerable  amount 
of  double-tracking  west  of  the  Missouri  River.  Yet, 
as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  the  military  necessity 
of  our  railroads,  it  is  only  a  double-track  railroad 
which  is  competent  to  handle  any  really  considerable 
volume  of  traffic.  And  it  is  equally  true  that  it  is 
more  than  foolish  to  attempt  to  build  or  to  develop 
any  considerable  mileage  of  branch  lines  until  there 
are  double-track  main  stems  to  serve  it  adequately. 
James  J.  Hill  had  all  these  things  in  mind  when  he 
made  his  definite  statement  as  to  the  financial  needs  of 
the  railroads  of  the  United  States  during  the  present 


22  The  Railroad  Problem 

decade.  And  he  did  not  need  to  give  consideration  to 
the  abnormal  traffic  which  the  great  war  has  given  to 
our  railroads.  The  normal  development  of  the  West, 
its  gigantic  possibilities,  were  sufficient  to  convince  that 
man  of  great  vision,  to  set  his  ready  pencil  at  sta- 
tistics. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  and  in  view  of  the  record  of 
these  past  half-dozen  years,  the  average  well-posted 
railroader  of  today  will  tell  you  that  Hill  was  only 
conservative  in  his  estimate.  But,  being  even  more 
conservative  ourselves,  let  us  allow  that,  if  the  railroads 
had  been  unhampered  during  the  past  decade,  they 
would  have  expended  as  high  as  $1,000,000,000  a  year 
in  permanent  improvements.1  Ten  billions  instead  of 
four!  Ten  billions  of  dollars  makes  dramatic  com- 
parison even  with  our  great  trade  balance  that  has 
accumulated  during  the  European  war — the  excess  of 
exports  over  imports  already  amounting  to  only  a  lit- 
tle over  $3,000,000,000.  And  as  to  what  it  would 
have  meant  to  industrial  America,  poured  out  through 
many  channels,  raw  materials,  manufactured  goods,  la- 
bor—  it  takes  no  stimulated  mind  to  imagine.  The 

1  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  President  of  the  City  National  Bank,  New  York 
city,  in  an  address  delivered  in  Washington,  late  in  October,  1916, 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  year  just  closing,  $400,000,000 
had  been  invested  in  new  industrials  in  America,  but  practically  not  a 
dollar  for  railroad  investment.  The  only  new  capital  which  the 
railroads  have  been  able  to  obtain  has  been  through  borrowing.  On 
top  of  this  Congress  has  taken  the  extraordinary  responsibility  of 
advancing  the  wages  of  the  railroad  trainmen.  The  extent  of  the  railroad 
business  is  such  that  it  ought  to  be  building  200,000  freight  cars  a  year. 
Last  year  (1915)  they  built  74,000,  in  1916  the  total  was  little,  if  any, 
greater.  And  week  after  week  the  reports  are  published,  showing 
the  car  famine  in  America. 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  23 

flush  period  into  which  the  war  has  suddenly  plunged 
us  can  give  a  fair  indication. 

Now  consider  for  a  moment  not  the  possible  expan- 
sion that  the  railroad  might  have  made  in  the  last 
decade  and  did  not,  and  see  how  it  has  failed  in  the 
ordinary  upkeep  of  its  property.  This  last  phase  of 
its  plight  bears  directly  upon  the  great  railroad  financial 
problem  as  it  exists  in  this  year  of  grace,  1916  —  the 
epochal  year  in  which  the  roads  need  to  replenish  their 
equipment;  the  year  in  which  they  find  the  doors  of 
the  money  markets,  open  to  almost  all  other  forms 
of  industrial  investment,  all  but  closed  in  their  faces. 
By  equipment,  I  now  speak  in  the  broad  sense  of  the 
word  not  merely  of  cars  and  locomotives  but  tracks 
and  bridges  and  terminals  as  well  —  the  entire  physical 
aspect  of  the  properties.  Yet  take,  if  you  will,  the  word 
"equipment"  in  its  narrow  and  technical  sense.  The 
sense  of  railroad  necessity  is  not  lessened. 

The  other  day  the  Massachusetts  Public  Service 
Commission  complained  that  the  largest  of  the  rail- 
roads operating  out  of  Boston  was  using  in  its  suburban 
service  some  700  wooden  passenger  coaches,  varying  in 
age  from  twenty-five  to  forty  years.  The  railroad  did 
not  deny  that  allegation.  It  merely  said  that  it  had 
no  money  with  which  to  buy  modern  coaches. 

Its  condition  is  typical.  Week  after  week  in  the 
glorious  autumn  of  the  year  of  grace  1916,  the  news 
columns  of  the  commercial  pages  of  our  morning  news- 
papers were  telling  with  unvarying  monotony  of  the 
shortage  of  freight  cars  as  bulletined  by  the  American 


24  The  Railroad  Problem 

Railway  Association —  100,000  this  week,  75,000  last, 
150,000  next  —  who  knows?  The  merchant  and  the 
manufacturer  know.  They  know  in  shipments  of  every 
sort  delayed;  in  the  delays  running  into  sizable  money 
losses  week  upon  week  and  month  upon  month. 

It  may  not  be  able  to  convince  them  that  at  the  close 
of  the  fiscal  year  1914  —  the  period  upon  which  we 
are  working — there  were  upon  the  roads  of  the 
United  States  2,325,647  freight  cars,  a  number  which, 
although  greatly  added  to  since  that  date,  has  not  yet 
been  made  adequate  for  the  normal  traffic  demands  of 
the  country.1  And  a  large  proportion  of  these  cars  are 
both  obsolete  and  inadequate.  In  1914,  out  of  the 
2,325,647  freight  cars  some  347,000  were  of  a  capacity 
of  but  60,000  pounds  or  under — a  type  today  con- 
sidered obsolete  by  the  most  efficient  operating  man. 
A  great  majority  of  this  latter  number  of  cars  was 
of  all-wood  construction.  If  the  financial  condition 
of  the  railroads  had  permitted,  they  doubtless  would 
have  been  replaced  long  since  with  all-steel  cars  of  far 
greater  carrying  capacity.  This  situation  in  the  freight- 
car  equipment  is  reflected  in  larger  measure  in  the 
passenger-car  and  locomotive  situation.  There  are  rail- 
roads in  the  United  States  that  today  are  compelled 

1  "  In  the  five  years,  ending  with  1906,  the  number  of  locomotives 
ordered  by  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  was  almost  22,400,  or 
almost  4,500  per  year.  During  the  five  years,  ending  with  1916,  the 
number  ordered  has  been  less  than  14,000,  or  about  2,800  a  year. 

"  In  the  five  years,  ending  with  1906,  the  total  number  of  freight  cars 
ordered  was  almost  1,100,000,  an  average  of  over  218,000  a  year. 
During  the  five  years,  ending  with  1916,  the  number  ordered  has  been 
only  about  740,000,  or  an  average  of  about  148,000  a  year." — Railway 
Age  Gazette. 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  25 

by  the  exigencies  of  a  really  serious  situation  to  operate 
locomotives  whose  very  condition  is  a  menace  not  only 
to  the  men  who  must  ride  and  operate  them  but  also 
to  the  passengers  in  the  trains  they  haul.  The  annual 
number  of  serious  delays  that  may  be  charged  to  "  en- 
gine failure"  is  appalling.1 

Now  consider  " equipment"  in  its  broader  sense.  Ex- 
pert railroaders  will  tell  you  that  save  in  the  case  of 
the  larger  and  more  prosperous  roads,  there  has  been, 
in  the  course  of  the  past  seven  or  eight  years,  a  serious 
depreciation  in  the  maintenance  of  the  way  and  struc- 
ture of  the  railroad.  In  the  prosperous  years  from 
1901  to  1907  a  very  great  improvement  was  made  in 
this  physical  feature  of  the  railroad.  In  the  last  of 
these  years  the  American  railroad  reached  the  highest 
standard  of  physical  perfection  that  it  has  ever  known. 

In  1907  came  the  great  panic.    It  made  drastic  econ- 


1  The  winter  which  ushered  in  1917  has  seen  not  only  great  freight 
congestion,  and  in  consequence  many  embargoes,  but  a  serious  impair- 
ment of  passenger  service,  particularly  in  the  northern  and  eastern 
sections  of  the  United  States.  This  impairment  has  taken  the  form  of 
constant  and  irritating  passenger  train  delays.  These  have  come 
despite  a  winter  more  mild  and  open,  particularly  in  the  East,  than  we 
have  had  for  a  number  of  years.  They  have  been  so  constant  and  so 
pronounced  as  to  arouse  much  comment  as  to  their  possible  causes.  By 
some  they  have  been  attributed  to  labor  disaffection,  and  by  others,  to 
the  congestion  caused  by  the  abnormal  movement  of  freight.  But  the 
railroaders  who  know  best  feel  that  the  real  cause  is  in  "  engine 
failure."  In  the  hard  years  of  stringent  economy  through  which  our 
carriers  have  just  passed  they  not  only  failed  to  purchase  sufficient 
new  locomotives,  but  to  repair  and  maintain  properly  the  ones  already 
in  their  roundhouses.  And  in  February,  1917  —  after  eighteen  months 
of  grilling  traffic  —  these  locomotives  have  begun  to  bend  and  break 
under  the  strain.  After  all,  a  locomotive  is  not  so  very  much  different 
from  a  man.  There  comes  a  limit  to  its  endurance. 


26  The  Railroad  Problem 

omies  immediately  necessary.  The  railroads  in  their 
anxiety  to  meet,  first,  their  dividends,  and  second,  their 
interest  obligations,  pinched  maintenance  to  the  extreme 
limit.  This  was  effective  in  two  ways:  In  the  first 
place  the  great  preponderance  of  roads  did  not  have 
earnings  to  make  ordinary  improvements,  nor  credit  to 
provide  the  capital  charge  that  would  apply  for  im- 
proved rights  of  way,  bridges,  stations,  freight  houses, 
shops,  and  the  like.  Expert  track  engineers  say  that 
the  loss  in  the  maintenance  of  line  during  these  lean 
years  in  Egypt  that  have  just  passed  will  average  at 
least  $2,000  a  mile.  Multiplied  by  a  total  of  245,000 
miles  of  railroad  line  in  the  United  States  this  means 
that  the  railroads  are  "back"  in  the  upkeep  of  their 
lines  alone  some  $49i,788,ooo.1 

An  expert  railroader  of  my  acquaintance  takes  this 


1 "  Some  question  has  been  raised  repeatedly  as  to  whether  the 
condition  of  railroad  net  earnings  really  has  been  the  cause  of  the 
decline  in  new  construction,  and  in  the  acquisition  of  new  equipment. 
For  example,  in  the  hearings  before  the  Newlands  Committee  at 
Washington  some  of  the  members  of  the  committee  have  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  stocks  of  many  of  the  better  managed  and  more 
prosperous  railroads  have  steadily  sold  above  par,  that  their  bonds 
also  have  commanded  what  seem  to  the  questioners  figures  which 
indicate  a  good  market  for  bonds,  and  it  has  been  asked  whether  any 
cases  can  actually  be  cited  where  strong  railroad  companies  have  sought 
and  have  failed  to  sell  at  good  prices  securities  to  raise  money  for 
improvements.  Points  of  this  kind  having  been  raised,  the  Raihcay 
Age  Gazette  recently  addressed  a  letter  to  the  presidents  of  several 
of  the  leading  railroads  of  the  country,  asking  them  to  give  specific 
examples  of  how  the  condition  of  earnings  and  of  the  money  market 
during  recent  years  has  interfered  with  their  raising  money  for  exten- 
sions and  improvements.  There  has  not  been  time  as  yet  for  replies  to 
all  these  inquiries  to  be  received.  Some  have  been  received,  however, 
and  they  contain  significant  information.  One  letter  which  has  been 
received  is  from  the  president  of  an  important  and  relatively  strong, 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  27 

great  figure  —  considerably  exceeding  the  cost  of  the 
Panama  Canal  —  adds  to  it  as  representing  a  carefully 
ascertained  deficiency  in  the  replacement  of  rolling 
stock  an  almost  equal  sum  —  $445,940,586.  To  these 
he  further  adds  the  dividends  paid  by  the  solvent  roads 
out  of  their  surpluses  during  the  seven  hard  years  — 
$784,563,406  —  and  the  depreciation  of  the  value  of 
the  securities  of  the  roads  in  bankruptcy  during  the 
same  period  —  $719,528,328.  The  total  of  these  four 
great  items  is  $2,441,820,320  —  a  sum  instantly  com- 
parable with  that  of  the  national  debt. 

There  is,  however,  from  a  bookkeeping  standpoint, 
at  least,  an  offset  against  these  losses  in  the  equipment 
account  of  $394,736,506  which  has,  under  a  wise  rul- 
ing of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  been 

prosperous  and  conservatively  managed  railroad  in  the  Northwest. 
He  says  in  part: 

"'This  company  has  been  for  some  time,  and  is  now  desirous  of 
building  about  four  hundred  miles  of  extensions  of  its  railroad  in 
sections  of  the  Northwest  that  are  not  at  present  adequately  served  by 
transportation  facilities;  but,  because  of  its  inability  to  dispose  of  its 
securities,  at  a  price  that,  as  a  business  proposition,  would  warrant  their 
sale,  has  been  unable  to  make  these  much  needed  extensions. 

" '  Until  within  the  past  few  years  this  company  was  able  to  dispose 
of  its  four  per  cent  bonds  at  approximately  par,  and  in  common  with 
other  first  class  securities,  these  were  considered  by  the  purchasers 
to  be  a  good  investment;  but  in  the  last  few  years  we  have  found  it 
practically  impossible  to  dispose  of  these  bonds  at  a  price  that  would 
meet  the  demands  of  an  economical  and  proper  administration  of  its 
financial  affairs. 

"  '  In  1915  in  order  to  secure  funds  required  for  needed  improvements 
and  betterments,  we  were  compelled  to  issue  bonds  drawing  five  per 
cent,  and  for  improvements  on  our  Chicago  division  we  were  unable 
to  find  purchasers  for  its  bonds,  and  were  compelled  to  issue  notes  due 
in  three  years,  bearing  interest  at  five  per  cent  for  that  purpose.' 

"  Another  letter  which  has  been  received  is  from  the  president  of 


28  The  Railroad  Problem 

charged  to  expenses  during  the  seven  years  and  set  up 
as  a  reserve  to  meet  the  accruing  deficiency  of  equip- 
ment. However,  there  have  been  no  restrictions  as  to 
the  maintenance  of  this  fund,  or  how  it  should  be  han- 
dled. The  very  prosperous  lines  —  representing  some 
100,000  miles,  or  less  than  half  the  total  mileage  of 
the  country  —  probably  have  their  contribution  to  this 
depreciation  fund  as  an  asset.  In  the  case  of  the  poorer 
roads  —  speaking  financially  —  it  doubtless  has  been  ap- 
plied to  other  purposes,  in  order  to  help  them  main- 
tain their  bare  existence.  It  has  come  home  to  these, 
and  with  great  force,  that  the  governing  conditions 
which  make  their  income  fixed  take  little  cognizance 
of  the  vast  annual  increases  in  material,  in  tax,  and  in 
labor  costs.  In  rough  figures  —  decidedly  rough,  it 
seems  to  me  —  it  has  been  estimated  that  the  losses 


one  of  the  greatest  railroad  systems,  not  only  of  the  eastern  part  of 
the  United  States,  but  of  the  world,  a  system  which  has  been  managed 
with  notable  conservatism  and  ability,  and  which  has  regularly  paid 
substantial  dividends.  The  president  of  this  railroad  says: 

"  '  Replying  to  your  letter  regarding  cases  where  railroads  had  found 
it  impracticable  to  do  any  new  construction  work  because  of  their 
inability  to  get  the  public  to  invest  in  their  securities,  much  depends 
upon  how  this  question  is  put.  Railroads  cannot  issue  bonds  and  stock 
and  throw  them  on  the  market  to  discover  whether  the  public  will  take 
them  or  not.  I  know  of  no  instance  where  any  company  with  sound 
credit  and  good  earnings  had  any  difficulty  in  selling  its  securities  to 
the  public,  provided  the  rate  was  satisfactory,  compared  with  others, 
but  there  have  been  very  many  cases  where  the  railroads  have  dis- 
covered, through  consultation  with  investors  and  bankers,  that  there 
was  no  market  for  railroad  securities,  except  on  terms  too  onerous 
for  the  railroads  to  accept,  and,  further,  because  many  railroads, 
including  our  own,  suffered  such  a  reduction  in  earnings  that  they 
were  not  warranted  in  offering  securities  to  the  public  or  proceeding 
with  large  items  of  construction  work  or  large  orders  for  equipment. 

"'For  instance,  in  the  case  (of  an  important  subsidiary  property),  I 


The  Plight  of  the  Railroad  29 

of  our  railroads  during  the  past  ten  years  alone  have 
amounted  to  approximately  one-half  the  entire  cost 
of  the  Civil  War.  That  figure  is  impressive  —  it  is 
little  less  than  appalling. 

Even  with  the  depreciation  accounts  of  the  American 
railroads  deducted  as  an  asset,  we  still  have  this  awe- 
inspiring  total  of  $2,000,000,000  confronting  us.  Some 
of  this  —  the  unpaid  dividends  of  more  than  seven  at- 
tenuated years  —  is  water  that  will  never  come  to  the 
mill  again.  But  the  neglected  rights  of  way,  the  ancient 
buildings,  and  the  bridges  needing  rehabilitation  on 
some  of  our  railroads,  the  locomotives  and  the  cars 
travel-racked  and  fairly  shrieking  for  repairs,  are  all 
of  them  physical  matters  that  must  be  set  right  be- 
fore the  sick  man  of  American  business  can  stand  firmly 
on  his  feet  once  again.  And  when  these  things  are 
done,  the  railroad  will  stand  physically  just  where  it 
stood  from  eight  to  nine  years  ago.  And  who  can 
deny  that  it  should  stand  nine  years  ahead  of  1917  in- 
stead of  nine  years  behind  it? 


know  that  for  a  long  period  we  had  to  defer  selling  bonds  on  more 
than  one  occasion,  although  the  construction  work  was  proceeding, 
because  market  conditions  were  not  favorable.  Its  mortgage  bonds 
would  be  guaranteed  by  (its  owners),  but  in  lieu  of  selling  them,  we 
temporarily  authorized  short-term  borrowing  at  lower  interest  rates. 
For  the  period  1908  to  1915  the  general  experience  of  most  of  the 
railroads  was  that  they  had  not  sufficient  business,  or  earnings,  to  furnish 
a  credit  basis  to  make  proper  additions  to  their  property  and  equipment, 
nor  was  there  sufficient  prospect  of  any  increased  traffic  to  justify 
proceeding  with  any  great  expenditure  program.  During  this  period, 
short-term  financing  had  to  be  resorted  to  because  of  the  impossibility 
of  selling  capital  stock  on  any  basis,  or  mortage  bonds,  except  on 
onerous  conditions.'  " —  Railway  Age  Gazette. 


CHAPTER  III 

ORGANIZED  LABOR THE  ENGINEER 

CO  much  then  for  the  physical  condition  of  the  rail- 
M  road  as  it  exists  today  —  the  condition  that  con- 
stantly is  being  reflected  in  its  inability  to  handle  the 
supertides  of  traffic  that,  in  this  memorable  winter  that 
ushers  in  1917,  are  coming  to  its  sidings  and  to  the 
doors  of  its  freight  houses.  Consider  now  the  condi- 
tion of  its  great  human  factor — its  relations  with  its 
employees.  I  am  sure  that  you  will  find  this,  in  many 
ways,  in  quite  as  deplorable  a  condition  as  the  track  and 
physical  equipment.  It  is  a  condition  that  steadily  has 
grown  worse,  instead  of  better  —  and  this  despite  a 
constant  improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  individual 
men  in  railroad  service. 

There  is  not  an  honest-speaking  railroad  executive 
all  the  way  across  the  land  who  cannot  tell  you  that 
he  would  a  dozen  times  rather  deal  with  the  average 
individual  railroader  of  today  than  with  the  average  in- 
dividual railroader  of,  let  us  say,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  With  the  railroader's  boss  —  his  grand  chief  and 
any  of  the  smaller  chiefs  —  well,  here  is  a  far  different 
matter.  But  there  has  been  a  steady  improvement  in 
the  quality  of  railroaders  —  of  every  sort  and  degree. 

If  you  have  traveled  upon  our  steel  pathways  for 
twenty  years  or  more  you  must  have  noticed  that 

30 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          31 

yourself.  The  transition  of  the  rough-looking,  rough- 
speaking,  rough-thinking  brakeman  into  the  courteous 
trainman  comes  first  to  my  mind.  And  if  the  old-time 
conductor  with  lantern  on  his  arm  has  disappeared, 
there  has  appeared  a  diplomat  in  his  stead,  a  gentleman 
with  whom  we  are  soon  to  become  a  little  better  ac- 
quainted. We  still  have  railroad  wrecks,  some  of  them 
admittedly  the  fault  of  the  engineer.  But  apparently 
we  have  ceased  to  have  railroad  wrecks  due  to  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  drunken  man  in  the  engine  cab.  The 
last  serious  wreck  where  this  accusation  was  made  was 
near  Corning,  New  York,  on  the  night  of  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1912.  More  than  forty  persons  lost  their 
lives  in  a  rear-end  collision  and  the  railroad  which 
paid  the  damages,  both  in  money  and  in  reputation,  did 
its  very  best  to  follow  up  a  suspicion  in  its  mind  that 
the  engineer  of  the  second  train  was  drunk  when  he 
climbed  into  its  engine  cab.  It  was  never  able  to  prove 
that  charge.  And  one  of  the  best  things  that  you  may 
say  about  that  extraordinarily  well-organized  union  — 
the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers  —  has  been 
its  unceasing  efforts  to  drive  out  drinking  among  its 
members.  Its  record  along  these  lines  is  of  unspotted 
cleanliness. 

Do  you  happen  to  know  of  Rule  G,  that  stringent 
regulation  in  the  standard  rule  books  of  the  operat- 
ing departments  of  the  railroads  of  America,  which  is 
written  not  alone  against  the  use  of  liquor  by  employees 
when  on  or  off  duty  but  also  against  their  frequenting 
the  places  where  liquor  is  sold?  Time  was  when  the 
abuse  of  Rule  G  sometimes  was  winked  at,  upon  cer- 


32  The  Railroad  Problem 

tain  roads.  That  time  has  passed.  Today  it  is  per- 
haps the  most  stringently  observed  of  all  the  manifold 
commandments  in  American  railroading.  And  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers 
has  done  much  toward  consummating  that  very  end. 

A  little  while  ago  an  engineer  running  on  one  of 
the  soft-coal  roads  of  West  Virginia  suspected  one  of 
his  fellows  in  the  engine  cab  of  drinking.  It  disturbed 
him  more  than  a  little.  Finally  he  went  to  the  man. 

"Jim,"  said  he,  in  the  course  of  their  heart-to-heart 
talk,  u  you've  simply  got  to  cut  out  the  stuff  or  —  " 

"If  I  don't,  what?" 

"  If  you  don't  I'm  a-goin'  to  take  it  up  at  the  lodge. 
You  know  the  Brotherhood's  against  that  sort  of 
thing." 

Jim  laid  his  hand  upon  the  other's  arm. 

"  Don't  do  that"  he  protested.  "  I'd  a  whole  sight 
rather  you'd  report  me,  if  you  feel  that  you've  got  to 
report  me,  to  the  superintendent." 

There  was  no  doubt  in  that  engineer's  mind  as  to  the 
stand  of  the  biggest  of  the  brotherhoods  on  Rule  G. 
Nor  is  that  stand  based  entirely  on  sentiment.  The  men 
who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomo- 
tive Engineers  never  lose  sight  of  the  responsibility  that 
rests  upon  the  man  in  the  engine  cab.  It  is  one  of  the 
strongest  arguments  which  they  may  use  in  their  ap- 
peals for  increased  wages.  It  is  an  argument  which 
meets  with  ready  and  popular  approval  in  the  minds 
of  the  public  which  rides  back  and  forth  upon  the  rail- 
road trains  of  America.  And  no  stronger  support  can 
be  offered  by  the  strongest  of  their  organizations  than 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          33 

an  adherence  to  Rule  G  that  is  practical  as  well  as 
theoretical. 

Responsibility  in  the  engine  cab !  Who  is  going  to 
deny  that  the  engineer  has  a  superb  responsibility  — 
from  the  moment  when  he  arrives  at  the  roundhouse 
and  signs  for  and  receives  his  engine  to  the  moment 
when  he  " checks  out"  at  the  terminal  at  the  far  end  of 
his  run?  To  the  better  appreciate  the  fullness  of  such 
responsibility,  one  would  do  well  to  climb  into  the  cab 
of  one  of  our  fast  trains  and  watch  the  man  there  at  his 
task.  So,  if  you  would  know  something  of  the  man  in 
the  engine  cab,  come  and  ride  a  little  way  with  him. 
It  is  not  easily  arranged.  The  railroaders  have  grown 
very  strict  in  the  enforcement  of  the  rule  which  forbids 
strangers  in  the  engine  cabs.  It  is  one  of  the  ways 
in  which  they  have  been  tightening  their  safety  precau- 
tions. Yet  in  this  one  instance  it  can  be  arranged.  You 
sign  tremendously  portentous  legal  "  releases,"  whose 
verbiage,  freely  translated,  gives  you  the  distinct  im- 
pression that  you  are  going  to  your  sure  doom.  But 
you  are  not.  You  are  going  to  ride  with  Jimmie  Free- 
man, crack  passenger  engineer  of  one  of  the  best  and 
the  biggest  of  our  eastern  railroads.  You  are  going  to 
have  a  close  look  at  the  man  in  the  engine  cab. 

Forty  minutes  before  the  leaving  time  of  Freeman's 
train  her  big  K-I  engine  backs  into  the  terminal  from 
the  roundhouse  and  is  quietly  fastened  to  the  long 
string  of  heavy  cars.  The  engineer  went  over  the 
big,  clean,  lusterless  mechanism  before  it  left  the 
inspection-pit  at  the  roundhouse.  It  is  part  of  his 


34  The  Railroad  Problem 

routine;  part  of  his  pride  as  well.  And  even  though 
it  cuts  him  out  of  a  Sunday  dinner  with  his  folks 
in  the  little  house  at  the  edge  of  the  town,  he  prefers 
that  it  be  so.  In  his  simple,  direct  way  he  tells  you 
that  he  has  the  same  satisfaction  in  speeding  a  loco- 
motive on  which,  by  personal  inspection,  he  knows  that 
every  bolt  and  nut  is  in  the  proper  position,  that  a  crack 
chauffeur  has  in  speeding  a  good  car  up  the  boulevard 
knowing  that  it,  too,  is  in  condition  —  engine,  driver, 
axles,  all  the  hundred  and  one  friction  parts  that  must 
work  truly,  even  at  high  speed  and  under  the  great  heat 
that  high  speed  generates  in  a  bearing. 

For  remember  that  Freeman's  limited  is  a  crack  train 
—  its  name  a  household  word  at  least  halfway  across 
the  land.  He  came  to  it  five  years  ago  —  a  prize  for 
an  engine-runner  who  had  judgment,  who  had  kept  a 
good  "  on  time  "  record  for  eight  years  with  a  less  im- 
portant passenger  train;  a  man  who  knew  the  compli- 
cations of  a  locomotive  as  you  and  I  know  the  fingers 
of  our  two  hands.  It  was  not  a  "seniority"  appoint- 
ment. The  "seniority"  jobs  come  to  the  very  oldest 
of  the  passenger  engineers  who,  because  of  the  very 
length  of  their  service,  are  permitted  to  pick  and  choose 
the  runs  that  would  suit  them  best.  These  rarely 
are  the  very  fast  runs.  They  are  more  apt  to  be  some 
modest  local  train  making  its  way  up  a  branch  line  and 
back,  where  there  is  little  congestion  of  traffic  and  a 
throttle-man's  nerves  are  not  kept  on  edge  every  blessed 
moment  that  he  is  on  the  job. 

Jimmie  Freeman  did  not  pick  his  job.  It  picked  him. 
It  picked  him  because  he  had  nerve,  a  steady  head, 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          35 

good  physique,  a  knowledge  of  the  locomotive  and  of 
all  of  its  whims  and  vagaries.  And  if  his  is  one  of  the 
hardest  jobs  on  the  big  road  for  which  he  works,  he 
is  perhaps  only  one  of  a  half-thousand  passenger  engi- 
neers it  might  pick  from  its  ranks  and  find  fully  able 
to  measure  to  it. 

An  air  signal  over  the  engineer's  head  rasps  twice; 
a  starting  signal.  He  pulls  out  the  throttle  ever  and 
ever  so  little  a  way — a  distance  to  be  measured  in 
inches  and  fractions  of  inches  —  and  the  limited  is  in 
motion. 

"We're  sixty  seconds  late  in  getting  off,"  says  Free- 
man as  he  replaces  his  watch  and  settles  down  for  the 
forty-mile  pull  up  to  B ,  the  first  stop  and  sched- 
uled to  be  reached  in  forty-three  minutes.  That  means, 
with  "  slow  orders  "  through  station  yards,  as  well  as 
one  or  two  sharp  curves  and  a  steep  grade  midway, 
that  Jimmie  will  have  no  time  to  loaf  on  the  straight- 
aways—  he  calls  them  "  tangents. " 

"  Green  on  the  high,"  says  the  fireman,  as  the  big 
K-I  ducks  her  head  under  a  signal  bridge  and  her  pilot 
trucks  find  their  way  to  the  long  crossover  that  brings 
her  from  the  platform  track  in  the  tangle  of  the  termi- 
nal yard  over  to  a  "  lead-track,"  which  in  turn  gives  to 
the  "  main,"  stretching  out  over  the  sunshiny  open  coun- 
try to  distant  B . 

'Yellow  on  the  low,"  calls  the  fireman  again  as  the 
engine  slips  under  still  another  signal  bridge  and  finds 
her  way  to  the  long,  unbroken  sweep  of  the  beginning 
of  the  "main."  Freeman  repeats  the  signals.  For  his 


36  The  Railroad  Problem 

part  he  is  supposed  to  read  them  all  the  way  to  P- 


where  his  run  ends  and  the  limited  goes,  bag  and  bag- 
gage, upon  the  rails  of  a  connecting  road.  He  is  sup- 
posed to  read,  the  fireman  to  repeat.  As  a  practical 
thing  it  is  sometimes  out  of  the  question.  The  cab  of 
the  big  passenger  puller  is  far  from  a  quiet  place. 
There  is  the  dull  pound  of  the  drivers  over  the  smooth 
rails,  the  roar  of  the  great  fire  between  them,  the  deafen- 
ing racket  of  the  forced  draft  that  pours  into  it.  The 
cab  does  not  lend  itself  to  conversation.  But  if  Free- 
man does  not  repeat  the  signal  indications  audibly  he 
does  it  mentally.  It  is  part  of  his  job.  And  the  mere 
repeating  of  the  signal  does  not  assure  safety. 

Once,  a  number  of  years  ago  and  upon  another  rail- 
road, I  rode  in  the  cab  of  a  fast  passenger  train.  The 
road  ran  straight  for  many  miles  and  across  a  level 
country.  Each  mile  of  its  path  was  marked  by  a  clock 
signal,  gleaming  against  the  night.  The  engineer 
shouted  each  of  those  signals,  and  his  fireman  echoed 
them  back. 

"White,"  he  would  call  —  for  white  was  then  the 
safety  color,  not  the  green  that  has  been  almost  uni- 
versally adopted  now. 

"White  it  is,"  would  come  the  reply.  And  in  an- 
other mile: 

"White,"  and  "White  she  is." 

And  once  my  heart  all  but  leaped  into  my  mouth. 
The  block  showed  red  —  red,  the  changeless  signal  for 
danger.  But  our  engineer  did  not  close  his  throttle 
or  reach  for  the  handle  of  his  air  brake. 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          37 

"Red,"  he  chanted  in  his  emotionless  fashion;  but 
the  fireman  altering  his  echo  to  "  Red  she  is,"  looked 
up  for  a  moment  into  his  chief's  face.  The  chief  never 
moved  a  muscle.  Sixty  seconds  later  he  shouted  again. 

"White." 

"White  she  is,"  repeated  the  fireman,  and  grinned 
as  he  thrust  another  shovelful  of  coal  into  the  fire  box. 

After  the  run  was  over  and  we  sat  at  the  comfortable 
eating  counter  of  the  Railroad  Y.M.C.A.,  I  asked  the 
engineer  why  he  had  run  by  that  red  signal.  He  hesi- 
tated a  moment. 

"  Man  alive,"  said  he,  udo  you  suppose  I  can  afford 
to  bring  my  train  to  a  full  stop  every  time  one  of  those 
pesky  blocks  gives  me  the  bloody  eye?  I  could  get  the 
next  two  blocks  and  saw  they  were  safe.  I  know  every 
inch  of  the  line,  and  knew  that  there  was  not  an  inter- 
locking"—  meaning  switches  and  crossing  tracks  — 
"  within  ten  miles  of  us.  The  block  was  out  of  order 
and  I  knew  it.  And  I  was  right." 

"  Suppose  there  was  a  broken  rail  in  that  block,"  I 
suggested,  "  wouldn't  that  break  the  current  and  auto- 
matically send  the  signal  to  danger?" 

The  engineer  did  not  answer  that  quickly.  He  knew 
the  point  was  well  taken.  Finally,  pressed,  he  said  that 
his  was  a  "  penalty  train,"  which  meant  that  it  carried 
the  mail  and  excess-fare  passengers  and  that  it  would 
cost  his  railroad  dollars  and  cents  if  it  were  more  than 
thirty  minutes  late  at  its  final  terminal.  To  have 
stopped  this  train  flat  at  the  red  signal,  when  he  felt 
morally  certain  and  could  practically  see  that  the  line 
was  clear  and  open,  would  have  cost  fifteen  minutes  or 


38  The  Railroad  Problem 

more.  If  the  practice  was  repeated  and  even  his  deten- 
tion sheets  showed  that  the  time  lost  was  due  to  stop- 
ping at  a  signal  that  was  out  of  order,  he  would  not  be 
censured.  Oh,  no !  But  sooner  or  later  there  would 
be  a  new  man  on  that  run  —  a  man  who  had  the  repu- 
tation of  bringing  his  train  in  on  time  over  his  division. 
That  was  what  the  engineer  told  me  that  night  as  we 
munched  our  crullers  and  sipped  our  coffee. 

Freeman  tells  another  story.  Freeman  says  that  he 
never  ran  past  a  red  signal  in  his  life  and  that  he  could 
not  have  held  his  run  on  the  limited  for  five  long  years 
if  he  had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  bringing  her  in  "  in 
her  time."  Freeman  speaks  a  good  word  for  the  sig- 
nals. You  take  note  of  it.  Then  you  remember  that 
in  one  of  the  innumerable  cases  that  came  up  before 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  down  in  Wash- 
ington, the  engineer  of  the  Congressional  Limited 
testified  that  in  the  five-hour  run  from  the  national 
capital  up  to  the  outskirts  of  New  York  he  had  to 
read  and  understand  and  observe  exactly  550  signals. 
It  was  one  of  the  things  that  he  said  made  his  job 
difficult. 

Yet  when  this  run  today  is  over  and  we  are  standing 
with  Freeman  by  the  side  of  the  turntable  in  the  big 
and  smoky  roundhouse,  as  his  big  long-boned  black 
baby  is  edging  gently  into  her  bunk  for  a  few  hours  of 
well-earned  rest,  he  will  tell  you  frankly  that  he  has  a 
genuine  affection  for  the  162  signals  that  stand  to 
beckon  him  on  or  to  halt  him  in  his  run  of  135  miles 
up  the  main  line. 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          39 

"I  just  let  myself  think  of  another  fairly  fast  run 
I  had  once  —  up  on  a  side  line,  single-track  at  that, 
where  there  wasn't  but  two  interlockings  the  whole  dis- 
tance or  a  single  block  protection  from  one  end  to  the 
other."  Then  he  adds,  "I'd  hate  without  the  signals 
to  pull  Twenty-four  at  a  sixty-mile-an-hour  clip.  To 
my  mind  they're  like  watchmen,  with  flags  or  lanterns 
every  mile  up  the  main  line.  Only  a  watchman  couldn't 
see  a  mile  and  know  of  a  break  in  the  rail,  the  way  that 
electric  block  knows  it.  Talk  about  a  thing  being 
human.  That  toy's  better  than  human.  It  has  a  test 
record  of  less  than  one  per  cent  of  failures,  and  in 
that  small  failure  record,  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the 
actual  failures  turned  the  signal  automatically  to 
danger." 

On  Freeman's  road  they  do  not  penalize  a  man  for 
failing  to  make  his  time,  by  finding  some  other  excuse 
and  then  quietly  removing  him  from  his  run.  On  the 
contrary,  there  are  maximum  speed  limits  for  every 
mile  of  the  main  line  and  its  branches  —  ways  by  which 
the  road  knows  that  the  maximums  are  not  being  ex- 
ceeded. And  Freeman  likes  to  quote  the  big  boss  of 
one  of  the  big  roads  —  Daniel  Willard,  come  from  an 
engine  cab  to  be  president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railroad.  Once,  when  discussing  this  very  question, 
Willard  said: 

"  If  there  is  a  rule  on  our  railroad  that  delays  an 
engineman  and  tends  to  prevent  his  making  his  schedule 
time  we  want  to  know  it  —  at  once.  If  we  believe  the 
rule  is  wrong  we  will  remove  it.  If  not,  and  it  delays 
the  trains,  we  will  lengthen  their  running  time." 


40  The  Railroad  Problem 

In  fact,  the  steady  tendency  of  all  American  roads 
during  the  past  ten  years  has  been  toward  length- 
ening schedules  rather  than  shortening  them.  The 
two  whirlwind  trains  between  New  York  and  Chicago 
now  take  twenty  hours  for  the  trip,  instead  of  eighteen, 
as  was  the  case  when  they  were  first  installed.  The 
famous  run  of  the  Jarrett  and  Palmer  special  in  1876, 
from  Jersey  City  to  Oakland  on  San  Francisco  Bay, 
in  four  days  flat,  still  stands  almost  as  a  transcontinental 
record,  while  the  fastest  running  time  ever  accredited 
to  a  locomotive  —  ii2l/2  miles  an  hour  by  a  New  York 
Central  locomotive  with  four  cars,  for  a  short  distance 
between  Rochester  and  Buffalo  —  was  accomplished 
more  than  twenty  years  ago. 

The  railroads  are  playing  fairer  with  their  Jimmie 
Freemans.  The  men  who  sit  on  the  right-hand  side  of 
the  engine  cabs  appreciate  that.  They  know  the 
responsibility  that  sits  unseen,  but  not  unnoticed,  at  the 
side  of  the  man  who  guides  the  locomotive. 

'*  We've  passed  the  sixty  mark,"  shouts  Freeman's 
fireman  into  your  ear.  Above  the  din  of  the  engine  you 
catch  his  words  as  the  faintest  of  whispers.  And  you 
look  ahead  at  the  curving  track.  Curving?  Forever 
curving,  and  each  time  it  swerves  and  the  path  that  we 
are  eating  up  at  the  rate  of  eighty-eight  feet  to  the 
second  is  lost  behind  the  brow  of  a  hill  or  through  a 
clump  of  trees,  your  heart  rises  to  your  mouth  and  you 
wonder  if  all  is  well  just  over  there  beyond.  And  then 
you  remember  that  the  friendly  raised  arm  of  the  block 
semaphore  has  said  "yes." 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer         41 

The  engineer's  figure  is  immobile  but  his  mind  is 
alert.  His  touch  upon  the  throttle  is  as  light  as  that 
of  a  child.  His  face,  half  hidden  behind  his  great 
goggles,  is  expressionless.  Yet  behind  those  same  pro- 
tecting glasses  the  windows  of  his  soul  are  open  —  and 
watching,  watching,  forever  watching  the  curving  track. 
Sometimes  the  track  curves  away  from  his  side  of  the 
cab,  and  then  the  fireman  climbs  up  on  his  seat  behind 
and  picks  up  the  lookout.  But  he  does  not  pick  up 
Freeman's  responsibility. 

Freeman  has  a  high  regard  for  signals.  He  never 
permits  them  to  become  monotonous. 

"  If  ever  I  get  that  way,  I'll  know  it  myself,"  says 
he,  "  and  it  will  be  high  time  for  me  to  get  out." 

After  all,  his  service  on  this  extra-fast  train  may 
not  exceed  ten  years.  A  man  whose  nerve  was  not 
iron  and  his  physique  steel  could  not  last  one-third  of 
that  time.  According  to  the  insurance  figures  of  the 
Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers,  to  which  Free- 
man and  most  of  his  fellows  belong,  eleven  years  and 
seven  days  is  the  average  length  of  service  for  an 
engineer  upon  an  American  railroad.  The  railroad 
managers  figure  it  a  little  differently  and  place  the 
average  at  something  over  twelve  years.  And  out  in 
the  West,  where  the  railroads  span  the  mountains  and 
thread  the  canyons,  the  man  in  the  engine  cab  will  rarely 
last  more  than  six  years. 

Of  course  the  situation  varies  on  different  railroads. 
Before  me  lies  the  report  of  the  Boston  and  Albany 
Railroad  —  impressive  because  of  the  length  of  the 


42  The  Railroad  Problem 

service  of  the  engineers  of  that  staunch  property.  It 
is  the  habit  of  that  railroad  to  give  annual  passes  to 
the  employees  who  have  been  in  its  service  more  than 
fifteen  years.  More  than  half  of  its  engineers  receive 
such  passes.  And  early  in  the  present  year  it  retired 
from  active  service  Engineer  James  W.  Chamberlain, 
who  had  been  in  its  employ  more  than  fifty-three  years. 
And  for  a  dozen  years  past  Chamberlain  had  been 
piloting  two  of  the  road's  fastest  trains  between  Boston 
and  Springfield.  You  cannot  always  rely  upon  averages. 

We  are  within  five  miles  of  B ,  where  our 

ride  in  the  engine  cab  ends.  Around  us  is  the 
typical  vicinage  of  a  growing  American  town  already 
almost  great  —  gas  tanks,  factories,  truck  gardens,  en- 
croaching upon  these  the  neat  pattern  of  new  streets 
upon  which  small  houses  are  rearing  their  heads  — 
close  round  about  us  the  railroad  yards,  vast  in  their 
ramifications  and  peopled  with  a  seemingly  infinite  num- 
ber of  red  and  blue  and  yellow  freight  cars.  There  is 
a  trail  of  them  close  beside  Freeman's  arm.  The  trail 
culminates  in  a  caboose  which  shows  flags  and  we  know 
that  it  is  a  freight  that  has  just  come  scampering  down 
the  line  into  the  yard  —  a  bare  five  or  six  minutes  lee- 
way to  get  out  of  our  way — .out  of  the  way  of  the 
trains  whose  delays  mean  personal  reports  and  excuses 
to  the  "  old  man,"  a  practical,  hard-headed  railroader 
who  has  a  fine  contempt  for  excuses  of  every  sort. 

'You  writer  fellows  like  to  talk  about  the  heroes 
of  the  engine  cab,"  says  the  fireman;  "the  boy  who  is 
pulling  that  greasy  old  Baldwin  comes  nearer  being  a 


Organized  Labor — The  Engineer          43 

hero  than  Jimmie  or  any  of  the  rest  of  the  passenger 
bunch." 

There  is  nothing  cryptic  in  his  meaning.  He  means 
that  the  freight  engineer,  pulling  a  less  carefully  main- 
tained piece  of  motive  power,  to  which  had  been  added 
not  only  its  full  working  capacity  of  cars,  but  as  many 
extra  as  an  energetic  and  hard-pressed  trainmaster  may 
add,  up  to  the  risk  point  of  an  engine-failure  and  conse- 
quent complete  breakdown  out  upon  the  main  line,  must 
keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  gleaming  green  and  gold  and 
brass  contraption  that  has  the  right  of  way  from  the 
very  moment  that  she  starts  out  from  the  terminal.  Yet 
it  is  the  freight-puller  and  his  train  that  are  earning 
the  money  that  must  be  used  to  pay  the  deficit  on  the 
limited  that  whirls  by  him  so  contemptuously.  For 
that  proud  and  showy  thing  of  green  and  gold  and 
brass  has  never  been  a  money-earner — and  never  will 
be.  Everyone  with  the  road  says  that  of  her.  They 
call  her  a  parasite  and  say  things  about  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  when  they  look  at  the  gay  flowers  in  her 
dining  cars  and  the  rampant  luxury  in  her  lounging  cars 
—  but  how  they  do  love  her !  It  is  the  parasite  of  which 
they  brag,  and  not  the  dull  and  dusty  freight. 

It  is  forty  minutes  since  we  first  pulled  out  of  the 
terminal  and  our  journey  with  Freeman  began.  And 
now,  a  few  blocks  away  and  around  a  sharp  curve  to 
the  left,  is  the  big  and  sprawling  passenger  station  at 

B ,  with  the  twilight  shadows  gathering  beneath 

the  roof  of  its  expansive  train  shed.     And  Freeman 
has  already  put  on  the  air  brakes,  the  big  engine  is 


44  The  Railroad  Problem 

feeling  its  way  cautiously  through  the  maze  of  tracks 
and  switches  while  once  again  you  hear  the  fireman 
call  the  signals.  Three  minutes  later  the  train  is  halted 
—  beside  the  long  platform  under  that  great  and  smoky 
shed,  folk  are  getting  on  and  off  the  cars  —  there  is  all 
the  gay  confusion  that  marks  the  arrival  and  the  de- 
parture of  an  important  train.  But  there  is  no  con- 
fusion about  Freeman.  With  his  long-nosed  oil  can  in 
hand  he  is  around  the  front  of  u  his  baby/'  making  sure 
that  she  is  attuned  for  her  next  long  leap  up  the  line. 
Freeman  takes  no  chances.  Instead,  he  takes  each  and 
every  opportunity  for  renewed  inspections  of  his 
locomotive. 

Responsibility  in  the  engine  cab ! 

One  cannot  deny  that  it  exists  there.  One  finds  it 
hard  to  confound  the  hard  fact  that  the  engineer  is 
worthy  of  a  good  wage  —  how  good  a  wage  is  the  only 
point  to  be  determined.  For  responsibility  must  be 
well  paid  —  whether  it  is  responsibility  at  the  dis- 
patcher's desk,  in  the  lonely  signal  tower,  in  the  track- 
foreman's  shanty,  in  any  of  the  many,  many  forms  of 
railroad  operation  where  the  human  factor  in  safety 
can  never  be  eliminated  —  where  danger  ever  lurks, 
just  around  the  corner  and  within  easy  reach  of  the 
outstretched  hand.  The  engineer  has  his  full  share  of 
responsibility.  But  he  has  no  monopoly  of  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ORGANIZED  LABOR THE   CONDUCTOR 

TTERE  is  another  of  the  well-organized  and  pro- 
•*•  ^  tected  forms  of  the  railroad's  labor — the  con- 
ductor. He  will  tell  you  that  a  goodly  measure  of 
responsibility  rests  upon  his  own  broad  shoulders.  Yet 
your  veteran  railroad  executive  does  not  regard  his 
conductor  so  much  as  a  responsibility  man  as  a  diplo- 
mat. This  last,  after  all,  is  his  chief  role. 

You  gather  your  brow.    You  do  not  understand. 

"  I  thought,"  you  begin  slowly,  for  you  have  made 
some  sort  of  a  study  of  this  big  game  of  railroading, 
"I  thought  that  the  traveling  freight  and  passenger 
agents,  all  that  solicitous  company  which  travels 
through  the  highways  and  byways  of  the  land,  the  big 
towns  and  the  small,  seeking  out  traffic,  for  the  rail- 
road, were  regarded  as  its  diplomats." 

You  are  partly  right  —  partly  wrong. 

For  the  real  diplomat  of  the  railroad  is  multiplied 
in  its  service,  far  more  than  the  freight  or  the  passen- 
ger agents.  The  humblest  and  the  rarest  of  passengers 
do  not  fail  to  see  him.  The  man  who  rides  on  the  rail- 
road train  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  comes  into 
almost  instant  touch  with  him.  You  yourself  have  seen 
him  many  times  making  his  way  down  the  aisle  of  the 
car;  stopping  patiently  beside  each  of  his  passengers  — 

45 


46  The  Railroad  Problem 

we  use  the  phrase  "his  passengers"  advisedly  —  greet- 
ing old  friends  with  cheery  nods;  upholding  the  dignity 
of  the  railroad  and  his  own  authority  —  quietly,  but 
none  the  less  surely  —  time  and  time  again.  Here,  as 
we  shall  come  in  a  moment  to  understand,  is  a  real 
diplomat  of  the  railroad  —  an  autocrat  of  no  small 
authority  in  those  rare  instances  where  he  may  fail  to 
be  a  gentleman.  And  all  this  stands  to  the  infinite 
credit  of  more  than  60,000  conductors  in  the  railroad 
service  across  the  land. 

We  have  just  called  him  an  autocrat.  Remember, 
however,  that  for  the  safe  movement  of  his  train  up 
and  down  the  railroad's  busy  lines  he  shares,  in  an 
important  degree,  the  responsibility  with  the  man  with 
whom  we  have  just  ridden  in  the  engine  cab;  but  the 
engineer  cannot  very  well  make  or  lose  business  for 
his  railroad  unless  he  stops  his  train  too  sharply  and  too 
many  times.  The  conductor  —  well,  we  are  going  to 
see  him  in  his  role  of  peacemaker  plenipotentiary  to  the 
public.  It,  of  itself,  is  a  role  where  he  can  be  and  is  of 
infinite  value  to  the  railroad. 

Do  you  chance  to  recall  the  conductor  of  yesteryear 
—  conceding  no  more  than  his  blue  cap  to  the  growing 
use  of  uniforms  in  a  republican  country;  somewhat 
unkempt  perhaps  as  to  clothes — yet  benevolent  and 
fatherly  in  his  way?  Did  that  sickly-looking  woman 
at  the  end  of  the  coach  fumble  and  then  attempt  a  feeble 
and  impotent  smile  when  he  asked  her  for  her  ticket? 
And  did  he,  with  a  sublime  myopia,  pass  her  by  without 
demanding  that  bit  of  pasteboard?  Your  old-time 


Organized  Labor— The  Conductor        47 

conductor  knew  the  difference  between  impostors  — 
even  in  skirts  —  and  empty-pocketed  folks  to  whom  a 
railroad  journey  might  be  a  tragic  necessity.  A  few 
years  up  and  down  the  line,  the  constant  study  of  the 
folk  within  his  cars  quickly  taught  him  that.  And  it 
would  have  been  a  pretty  poor  sort  of  old-fashioned 
railroad  that  would  not  have  allowed  him  discretion  in 
such  cases. 

Your  new-time  railroad  allows  him  little  or  no  dis- 
cretion in  matters  of  this  sort.  Your  conductor  of 
today,  finally  quite  at  ease  in  the  trimness  of  his  well-set 
uniform,  his  arm-lantern  gone  into  the  scrap  heap  in 
these  days  of  electric-lighted  cars,  on  most  railroads 
has  practically  no  opportunity  to  use  his  judgment  in 
matters  that  pertain  to  the  fares.  If  he  lets  anyone  ride 
free  on  his  train  —  and  the  boss  learns  of  it — he  hears 
dire  threats  about  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis- 
sion, sees  the  yawning  doors  of  the  penitentiary  close 
at  hand. 

Railroad  managements  have  a  way  of  using  that  law 
for  the  punishment  of  dishonest  employees.  So  your 
conductor  of  today  lacks  the  power  of  his  brethren  of 
an  earlier  day.  They  worked  in  a  generation  when  the 
railroad  still  was  a  personal  thing.  Men  and  families 
owned  railroads  as  they  might  own  farms  or  banks  or 
grocery  stores.  They  headed  their  own  roads  and  they 
assumed  an  attitude  toward  their  men,  autocratic  or 
benevolent  as  the  case  might  be,  but  almost  always  dis- 
tinctly personal.  The  railroad  as  a  separate  unit  had 
not  then  grown  beyond  a  point  where  that  was  possible 
and  the  big  boss  was  a  real  factor  in  the  lives  of  his 


48  The  Railroad  Problem 

men.  They  might  come  to  have  a  real  affection  for 
him  —  such  as  they  had  for  Lucius  Tuttle,  when  he  was 
president  of  the  Boston  and  Maine  —  and  call  him  by 
his  first  name.  No  higher  compliment  can  come  up 
from  the  ranks  to  a  railroad  executive. 

Today  discretion  is  discrimination  in  far  too  many 
cases.  So  reads  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law  about 
discrimination.  It  places  discrimination  in  the  same 
class  with  burglary  and  the  shippers  who  had  dealings 
with  many  of  our  railroads  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
are  thanking  all  the  political  gods  of  the  United  States 
of  America  that  this  law  was  placed  upon  the  statute- 
books;  but  it  can  be  read  too  literally,  just  as  the  con- 
ductor of  a  modern  train  can  be  too  sharp-sighted. 
Here  is  a  case,  which  from  too  fine  or  technical  a  read- 
ing of  the  law  might  be  read  into  discrimination;  in 
reality  it  was  an  instance  of  real  discretion  on  the  part 
of  the  conductor. 

A  man  —  a  nervous,  tired  man  —  was  bound  east 
through  the  state  of  New  York  upon  the  Lake  Shore 
Limited.  His  destination  was  Kingston,  which  is 
situate  upon  the  west  bank  of  the  Hudson  River,  almost 
half  way  between  New  York  and  Albany.  The  route 
of  the  Lake  Shore  Limited  is  down  the  east  shore  of 
the  river,  without  a  stop  between  Albany  and  New 
York.  Anyone  who  knows  the  Hudson  Valley  well 
knows  how  atrocious  are  the  facilities  for  crossing  the 
river  at  almost  any  point  between  those  two  cities. 
This  tired,  nervous  man  planned  to  catch  the  last  train 
of  the  afternoon  down  the  West  Shore  Railroad  from 
Albany  to  Kingston.  Under  normal  conditions  he  had 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  49 

about  thirty  minutes'  leeway  in  which  to  make  the 
change;  but  on  this  occasion  the  Lake  Shore  Limited 
was  a  little  more  than  thirty  minutes  late  and  he  did  not 
alight  at  Albany — he  had  no  wish  to  hang  around 
there  until  some  time  in  the  early  morning.  He  de- 
cided that  he  would  go  through  to  New  York,  cross  the 
city  from  the  Grand  Central  Station  to  Weehawken 
and  then  go  through  to  Kingston  on  a  night  train.  This 
meant  180  extra  miles  of  travel;  but  the  man  was  in 
a  very  great  hurry  and  with  him  time  counted  more 
than  miles. 

As  his  train  swept  across  the  bridge  and  out  of 
Albany  the  conductor  came  through.  He  was  a  round, 
genial-faced  fellow,  typical  of  that  other  generation  of 
train  captains  that  one  often  finds  upon  the  older  rail- 
roads of  the  land;  and  the  man  from  Kingston  halted 
him  —  told  his  story  very  much  as  we  have  told  it  here. 

"  I  didn't  know  but  that,  if  you  were  going  to  stop 
for  water  at  Poughkeepsie,  I  might  slip  off  some  way," 
he  finally  ventured.  "That  would  leave  me  less  than 
twenty  miles  from  home." 

The  conductor  did  not  hesitate. 

"We  don't  stop  at  Poughkeepsie  —  for  water  or 
anything  else,"  he  said.  "  But  I'll  stop  at  Rhinecliff 
for  you." 

Rhinecliff  is  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Hudson,  directly 
opposite  Kingston.  That  seemed  too  good  to  be  true 
—  and  the  man  stammered  out  his  thanks. 

"  I  didn't  think  you'd  stop  this  crack  train  for 
anybody,"  he  said  quite  frankly.  "The  time  card 
doesn't—" 


50  The  Railroad  Problem 

"This  train  stops  for  the  proper  accommodation  of 
the  patrons  of  this  road,"  interrupted  the  conductor, 
"  and  I'm  its  high  judge.  You  lost  out  on  your  con- 
nection at  Albany  through  no  fault  of  yours.  It  was 
our  fault  and  we  are  doing  our  best  to  make  it  up  to 
you." 

Consider  the  value  of  such  a  man  to  the  organization 
which  employs  him.  That  little  act  was  worth  more  to 
the  big  railroad  whose  uniform  he  bore  than  a  ton  of 
advertising  tracts  or  a  month's  service  of  its  corps  of 
soliciting  agents.  The  Kingston  man  crossed  the  river 
from  Rhinecliff  in  a  motor  boat  and  thanked  the  road 
and  its  conductor  for  the  service  it  had  rendered  him. 
He  was  a  large  shipper  and  his  factory  in  the  western 
part  of  the  state  is  in  a  hotly  competitive  territory;  but 
the  road  that  through  the  good  sense  of  its  employee 
had  saved  him  much  valuable  time  today  hardly  knows 
a  competitor  in  his  shipping  room. 

Discrimination?  Your  attorney,  skilled  in  the  fine 
workings  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law,  may  tell 
you  "Yes,"  but  we  are  inclined  to  think  he  is  wrong, 
for  the  man  was  not  permitted  to  alight  at  Rhinecliff 
because  he  was  anything  more  than  a  patron  of  the 
road.  He  had  no  political  or  newspaper  affiliations  to 
parade  before  the  conductor;  he  did  not  hint  at  his 
strength  as  a  shipper,  he  did  not  even  give  his  name. 
If  there  is  discrimination  in  that,  I  fail  to  see  it. 

A  certain  man  took  a  trip  from  New  York  to  Chi- 
cago three  or  four  years  ago.  He  went  on  a  famous 
road,  well  conducted,  and  he  returned  on  its  equally 
famous  competitor.  Each  road  had  just  conquered  a 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        51 

mighty  river  by  boring  an  electrically  operated  tunnel 
underneath  it.  The  tunnel  had  been  well  advertised 
and  the  man,  whose  mind  had  a  mechanical  turn,  was 
anxious  to  see  both  of  them.  In  each  case  the  train 
bore  a  wide-vestibuled  day  coach  as  its  last  car. 

In  the  first  tunnel  through  which  he  passed  he  went 
to  the  rear  of  the  day  coach  with  the  intention  of  taking 
a  look  at  the  under-river  bore.  He  wanted  to  stand 
at  the  rear  of  the  aisle  and  look  through  the  door  at  the 
electrically  lighted  tube.  But  the  conductor  anticipated 
him.  He  drew  down  the  sash  curtain  of  the  car  door. 

"Sorry,"  he  said,  "but  the  company's  rules  prohibit 
passengers  from  standing  in  the  aisles." 

One  might  write  a  whole  chapter  on  the  thoroughly 
asinine  rules  that  some  roads  have  made  for  the  guid- 
ance not  only  of  their  employees  but  of  their  patrons  as 
well.  But  this  man  did  not  argue.  He  bowed  dutifully 
to  the  strong  arm  of  the  rule  book  and  went  back  to 
his  seat  —  thoroughly  cowed.  But  how  different  was 
the  case  on  the  other  railroad,  by  which  he  returned 
from  Chicago !  This  second  time  he  went  to  the  rear 
of  the  train,  recalling  his  first  experience  and  the  rebuff 
he  had  received.  But  this  road  and  its  conductor  were 
of  a  different  sort.  This  second  conductor  was  fasten- 
ing the  outside  doors  of  the  vestibule  at  the  rear  of  the 
last  car  and  saying  to  the  little  group  assembled 
there: 

"  If  you  will  wait  a  minute  I  will  give  you  a  chance 
to  get  out  on  this  rear  platform  and  see  the  big  job 
we've  been  working  on  so  long.  We  all  of  us  are 
mighty  proud  of  it." 


52  The  Railroad  Problem 

How  much  of  an  asset  do  you  suppose  this  conductor 
was  to  his  company? 

By  this  time  the  new-fangled  railroad  executive  who 
reads  this  will  be  filled  with  disgust. 

"Doesn't  he  know,"  I  can  hear  him  say,  "that  rail- 
roading has  taken  some  pretty  big  strides  within  the 
past  fifteen  or  twenty  years?  We're  perfecting;  we're 
systematizing.  We've  studied  the  motions  of  the  brick- 
layer and  we're  dabbling  in  efficiency.  We've  modeled 
our  railroads  after  the  best  of  the  standing  armies  of 
Europe  and  we've  begun  to  move  men  like  units.  That 
means  that  we've  no  room  in  railroad  ranks  for  indi- 
vidualists. An  individualist  never  makes  an  ideal  unit 
and  the  new  efficiency  demands  units  —  not  thinkers!  " 

Does  it?  In  the  minds  of  a  good  many  railroaders 
of  the  newer  schools  it  seems  to.  Yet  some  of  these 
very  same  railroaders  were  overjoyed  a  little  time  ago 
—  when  the  half-baked  Adamson  eight-hour  law  was 
being  jammed  through  Congress  —  to  see  out  from 
the  Middle  West,  from  the  rails  of  the  Santa  Fe, 
the  Union  Pacific,  the  Milwaukee  roads,  veteran  con- 
ductors coming  forward,  who  not  only  did  not  hesitate 
to  speak  their  minds  against  the  measure,  but  actually 
sought  out  injunctions  against  it.  What  it  might 
cost  these  men  in  prestige  and  in  the  affection  of 
their  fellows,  in  possible  punishments  by  the  lodges  of 
their  brotherhoods,  the  outside  public  may  never  know. 
It  can  be  fairly  assured  that  the  price  was  no  small  one. 

Would  the  railroad  executives  of  the  Middle  West 
have  preferred  that  these  men  be  units,  rather  than 
individualists?  I  think  not.  The  truth  of  the  matter 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        53 

is,  that  in  its  very  desire  to  stand  straight,  the  new 
school  of  railroading  sometimes  leans  backward.  We 
will  grant  that  in  the  coming  of  the  great  combinations 
of  new-time  railroads  it  was  a  mighty  good  step  to  elim- 
inate the  haphazard,  wasteful,  inefficient  old  school  of 
personal  railroading.  Consolidation  has  effected  some 
wonderful  working  advantages  in  the  operation  of  our 
giant  systems,  and  it  is  a  grave  question  whether  today, 
with  the  margin  between  income  and  operating  cost 
constantly  narrowing,  if  the  eggs  were  unscrambled  and 
the  famous  little  old  roads  returned,  they  could  be 
operated  long  and  dodge  the  scrawny  fingers  of  re- 
ceivership. Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  if  they  have  gained  in 
many  ways  by  consolidation  and  centralization,  they 
have  lost  something  definite  in  the  personal  feeling 
which  used  to  exist  between  their  men  and  themselves. 
It  was  an  asset  that  could  hardly  be  expressed  in  dol- 
lars and  cents. 

After  the  New  York,  New  Haven,  and  Hartford 
Railroad  had  absorbed  the  famous  Old  Colony  —  down 
there  in  the  southeastern  corner  of  Massachusetts  —  it 
was  five  years  before  its  conductors  ceased  to  know  it 
and  to  love  it  as  the  Old  Colony.  To  older  conductors 
the  Panhandle  and  the  Lake  Shore  are  still  as  real  and 
as  vital  as  if  those  beloved  names  still  appeared  upon 
the  rolling  stock.  'Measure  such  an  asset  in  dollars 
and  cents  if  you  can !  You  cannot,  thank  God,  place  a 
valuation  upon  such  assets  as  affection  and  loyalty. 

So  to  your  first  qualities  of  dignity  and  authority  and 
discretion  —  in  these  days  we  dare  not  call  it  discrimina- 
tion—  supplement  those  of  affection  and  of  loyalty. 


54  The  Railroad  Problem 

And  to  these  add  that  of  ability;  for  a  conductor's 
entire  work  is  not  merely  collecting  his  tickets  and 
keeping  the  passengers  of  his  train  in  good  humor  - 
though  sometimes  this  last  is  a  man's  job  by  itself.  He 
must  bear  in  mind  that  Bible  of  the  railroad  —  the  time 
card — the  place  his  train  takes  upon  it;  its  relation  to 
every  other  train,  regular  and  special,  on  the  line.  His 
mind  must  be  —  every  minute  that  he  is  on  the  road  — 
a  replica  of  the  dispatcher's,  working  in  perfect  syn- 
chronism with  that  of  the  controlling  head  who  bends 
over  the  train  sheet  back  at  headquarters.  This  work, 
comparatively  simple  on  a  double-track  line,  becomes,  in 
many  instances,  tremendously  complicated  upon  the 
many  miles  of  single-track  railroads  that  still  bear  a 
heavy  traffic  up  and  down  and  across  America. 

The  "opposing  trains"  to  be  met  and  passed;  the 
slower  trains  moving  in  the  same  direction  to  be  over- 
taken and  also  passed;  the  complications  of  special 
movements  —  all  these  must  be  borne  in  accurate  corre- 
lation as  the  conductor  passes  up  or  down  the  line.  He 
may  have  extra  cars  to  his  train  and  an  extraordinarily 
difficult  crowd  of  passengers  to  handle,  but  he  cannot 
for  a  moment  ignore  the  most  minute  detail  of  the 
flimsy  messages  that  are  handed  to  him  during  the  entire 
length  of  his  trip.  And  back  of  his  specific  orders  for 
the  day  he  must  ever  carry  the  entire  scheme  of  the 
division's  operation. 

So  here  you  have  the  passenger  conductor  —  a  real 
knight  of  the  road,  if  you  please  —  careful,  discerning, 
courageous;  a  rare  diplomat;  perhaps  in  this  commer- 
cial day  of  big  things  the  spirit  of  the  skipper  of  the 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        55 

famous  old-time  clipper  ship  incarnate !  He  is  worthy 
of  the  great  railroad  empire  of  the  world.  In  Europe,  the 
state  railroads  of  Germany  and  of  France,  the  short, 
congested  lines  of  Great  Britain  have  not  his  counter- 
part. He  is  a  product  both  of  our  nationalism  and  of 
the  hard  necessity  that  has  hedged  him  in.  And,  in 
passing,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  some  of  the  men  who 
sit  today  in  the  highest  executive  positions  of  the  great- 
est of  our  railroads  have  stood  their  long,  hard  turns 
with  the  ticket-punch.  A  recent  and  a  peculiarly  gifted 
chairman  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  — 
Edgar  E.  Clark  —  was  for  many  years  a  passenger  con- 
ductor; his  pride  in  his  calling  of  those  earlier  years 
is  unbounded. 

Here  I  have  shown  you  in  a  word  the  two  strongest 
of  the  four  types  of  railroad  organized  labor.  For 
while  there  are  organizations  among  some  other  forms 
of  the  railroads'  employees,  switchmen,  telegraphers, 
and  the  like,  it  is  the  engineers,  the  firemen,  the  con- 
ductors, and  the  trainmen  who  hold  the  whiphand  of 
authority  over  the  railroad  executive  and  the  politician 
alike.  They  have  a  power  that  is  to  be  feared — they 
have  said  it  themselves.  And  the  politicians,  the  public, 
a  good  many  of  the  biggest  railroad  executives  have 
believed  it.  Once  in  a  while  you  will  find  a  railroad 
executive  — like  that  stern  old  lion,  Edward  Payson 
Ripley,  who  brought  the  Santa  Fe  Railroad  out  of  bank- 
ruptcy into  affluence  and  became  its  president — who 
states  his  disbelief  and  states  it  so  plainly  that  there  can 
be  no  doubt  as  to  its  meaning.  For  a  long  time  Ripley 
has  seen  the  handwriting  on  the  wall.  And  so  seeing, 


56  The  Railroad  Problem 

he  has  had  small  patience  with  the  weak-kneed  com- 
promise that  invariably  has  followed  the  so-called  recur- 
rent crises  between  the  four  big  brotherhoods  of  the 
railroads  and  their  employers.  There  is  nothing  weak- 
kneed  about  Ripley  and  the  rapidly  growing  group  of 
executives  rallying  about  him.  It  must  come  to  an 
issue,  open  warfare  if  you  please.  In  such  a  war  either 
the  railroads  or  their  labor  will  win.  But  upon  the 
victory,  no  matter  how  it  may  go,  definite  economic 
policy  may  be  builded.  You  cannot  build  either  definite 
or  enduring  policy  upon  compromise.  Our  own  Civil 
War  and  the  weak-kneed  years  of  compromise  that 
preceded  it  ought  to  show  that  to  each  of  us,  beyond 
a  shadow  of  a  doubt. 

We  are  just  passing  through  one  of  the  periodic 
"crises"  between  the  railroads  and  their  four  big 
brotherhoods.  These  "  crises,"  which,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time  at  least,  have  always  ended  in  wage  adjust 
ments  of  a  decidedly  upward  trend,  are  apt  to  be  staged 
on  the  eve  of  an  important  election.  They  invariably 
are  accompanied  by  threats  of  a  strike  —  the  German 
der  Tag  reduced  to  an  American  rule  of  terror.  These 
threats  are  so  definite  as  to  leave  nothing  but  alarm  in 
the  public  breast. 

Then  arbitration  may  be  brought  to  play  upon  the 
situation.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  understanding — 
accompanied  by  a  still  greater  amount  of  misunder- 
standing. The  big  leaders  of  the  big  brotherhoods  are 
no  fools.  They  are  skilled  in  the  new-fangled  science 
of  publicity.  And  so  are  the  railroads.  Yet  finally  the 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        57 

men  get  their  increased  wages  —  or  a  good  part  of  what 
they  have  asked.  And  finally  the  cost  is  slipped  along 
to  the  public,  in  the  form  of  increased  passenger  fares 
or  freight  tariffs.  Then,  sooner  or  later,  the  brother- 
hood railroad  employee  feels  the  increased  cost  of 
transportation  distinctly  reflected  in  his  own  rising  cost 
of  living.  He  feels  it  distinctly,  because  an  instinctive 
idea  of  the  manufacturer  or  the  distributor  is  to  add  on 
the  transportation  cost  to  his  manufacturing  and  selling 
cost,  with  something  more  than  a  fair  margin.  Thus  a 
general  increase  of  five  per  cent  in  freight  rates  may 
only  mean  that  it  costs  a  fraction  less  than  two  cents 
more  to  ship  a  pair  of  shoes  from  Boston  to  Cleveland. 
But  the  manufacturer  in  Boston  is  tempted  to  add  five 
cents  to  his  selling  cost — to  cover  not  only  the  increase 
in  transportation,  but  other  manufacturing-cost  in- 
creases, less  definite  in  detail  but  appreciable  in  volume. 
The  wholesaler,  under  the  same  pressure  from  a  stead- 
ily advancing  cost  of  maintaining  his  business,  makes 
his  increase  ten  cents,  and  the  retailer,  not  immune 
from  the  same  general  conditions  which  govern  the 
manufacturer  or  the  wholesaler,  protects  himself  by 
placing  an  extra  charge  of  twenty-five  cents  to  his  retail 
patron.  If  the  final  patron  —  the  man  or  the  woman 
who  is  to  wear  the  shoes  —  protests,  the  retailer  in- 
forms him  that  the  recent  increase  in  freight  rates  — 
well  advertised  in  the  public  prints  —  is  responsible  for 
the  new  selling  price.  So  has  the  increase  in  freight 
rates  been  magnified  —  both  in  reality  and  in  the  public 
mind. 

It  is  when  the  brotherhood  man  or  his  wife  or 


58  The  Railroad  Problem 

daughter  buys  the  shoes  that  they  begin  to  pinch  — 
economically,  at  least.  It  is  not  only  shoes,  it  is  cloth- 
ing, it  is  foodstuffs,  it  is  coal  —  the  pressure  gains  and 
from  every  quarter.  Then  the  brotherhood  man  — 
engineer  or  conductor  or  fireman  or  trainman  —  rises 
in  lodge-meeting  and  demands  a  better  wage.  His 
margin  be'tween  income  and  outgo  is  beginning  to  nar- 
row. He  has  a  family  to  rear,  a  home  to  maintain  —  a 
pride  in  both.  In  the  course  of  a  short  time  the  men 
at  the  top  of  the  brotherhoods  feel  this  mass  pressure 
from  below.  They  must  yield  to  it.  If  they  do  not, 
their  positions  and  their  prestige  will  be  taken  away 
from  them.  So  they  get  together,  decide  on  the  amount 
of  the  relief  they  must  have,  and  begin  their  demands 
upon  the  railroads.  And  when  the  railroads,  with  their 
well-known  cost  sheets  ever  in  front  of  them,  show 
resistance,  the  threats  of  strike  once  again  fill  the  air. 
Gentle,  peace-loving  folk  of  every  sort  become  alarmed. 
There  is  turmoil  among  the  politicians,  of  every  sort 
and  variety.  After  that,  arbitration. 

President  Wilson  in  his  recent  address  to  Congress, 
in  his  accurate,  authoritative  way,  laid  great  stress  upon 
this  very  point  of  arbitration.  He  had  laid  stress  upon 
it  in  the  crisis  of  September,  1916  —  when  it  looked  as 
if  railroad  union  labor  and  the  executives  of  the  rail- 
roads had  come  to  an  actual  parting  of  the  ways  —  and 
the  country  was  to  be  turned  from  threats  into  the 
terrorizing  actuality  of  a  strike.  Only  Congress,  which 
seems  rarely  able  to  realize  that  it  can  ever  be  anything 
else  than  Congress  and  so  bound  to  its  traditions  of 
inefficiency,  chose  to  overlook  this  portion  of  the  Presi- 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        59 

dent's  solution  of  the  situation.     It  granted  the  eight- 
hour  day — so  called  —  but  it  was  deaf  to  arbitration. 
Said  President  Wilson  in  his  address: 

To  pass  a  law  which  forbade  or  prevented  the  individual 
workman  to  leave  his  work  before  receiving  the  approval  of 
society  in  doing  so  would  be  to  adopt  a  new  principle  into  our 
jurisprudence,  which  I  take  it  for  granted  we  are  not  prepared 
to  introduce.  But  the  proposal  that  the  operation  of  the  rail- 
ways of  the  country  shall  not  be  stopped  or  interrupted  by  the 
concerted  action  of  organized  bodies  of  men  until  a  public  inves- 
tigation shall  have  been  instituted  which  shall  make  the  whole 
question  at  issue  plain  for  the  judgment  of  the  opinion  of  the 
nation  is  not  to  propose  any  such  principle. 

The  President  is  nearly  always  right  —  particularly 
so  in  domestic  affairs.  But  never,  in  my  knowledge, 
has  he  expressed  himself  with  greater  vigor  and 
strength  than  in  this  particular  instance.  Not  that  the 
principle  is  apt  to  be  popular  —  quite  the  reverse  is 
probable.  There  are  employers  of  a  certain  type,  also 
employees  of  a  certain  type,  whose  bitterness  against 
any  fair  measure  of  arbitration  is  unyielding.  The 
great  railroad  brotherhoods  have  never  shown  any 
enthusiasm  over  the  idea,  despite  the  fact  that  the  two 
countries  in  which  arbitration  is  strongest  and  most 
successful — Australia  and  New  Zealand  —  are  con- 
trolled by  organized  labor. 

There  are  railroad  executives  also  who  have  been 
opposed  to  arbitration  save  where  they  might  manipu- 
late it  to  serve  their  own  selfish  ends.  But  these  are 
the  types  of  railroad  chiefs  who  are  beginning  to  dis- 
appear under  the  new  order  of  things  in  America. 


60  The  Railroad  Problem 

Theirs  was  another  and  somewhat  less  enlightened 
generation  —  particularly  in  regard  to  social  economics. 
And  even  in  the  railroad  the  old  order  is  rapidly  giving 
way  to  the  new. 

There  is  a  class  in  America  which  enthusiastically 
receives  arbitration  —  compulsory  arbitration  —  and 
demands  that  it  be  extended  in  full  to  the  railroad,  as 
well  as  to  every  other  form  of  industrial  enterprise. 
I  am  referring  to  the  average  citizen  —  the  man  who 
stands  to  lose,  and  to  lose  heavily,  while  a  strike  of 
any  magnitude  is  in  progress.  He  is  an  innocent  party 
to  the  entire  matter.  And  he  must  be  protected  —  abso- 
lutely and  finally. 

That  is  why  we  must  have  arbitration  —  compulsory 
arbitration,  for  any  arbitration  which  is  not  compulsory 
and  practically  final,  is  useless.  We  have  had  the  other 
sort  already  and  it  has  brought  us  nowhere.  We  had 
arbitration  of  the  uncompulsory  sort  before  the  critical 
days  at  the  end  of  last  August.  In  the  final  course  of 
events  both  the  railroads  and  their  brotherhood  em- 
ployees ignored  it.  And  the  average  man,  the  man  in 
the  street,  was  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  it  had  even 
been  tried. 

After  that  sort  of  arbitration  comes  compromise,  and 
compromise  of  that  sort  is  a  thin  veil  for  failure.  And 
failure  means  that  the  whole  thing  must  be  gone  over 
once  again.  The  circle  has  been  completed — in  a 
remarkably  short  space  of  time. 

It  all  is  a  merry-go-round,  without  merriment;  a 
juggernaut  which  revolves  upon  a  seemingly  unending 
path.  Yet  he  is  a  real  juggernaut.  For  while  the 


Organized  Labor — The  Conductor        61 

brotherhood  man  may  seek  and  obtain  relief  upon  the 
lines  which  I  have  just  indicated — how  about  the  sala- 
ried man  outside  the  railroad  ?  And  how  about  the  man 
inside  the  railroad  whom  no  strong  brotherhood  organ- 
ization, no  gifted,  diplomatic  leader  of  men  protects? 
It  is  this  last  class  —  the  unorganized  labor  of  the 
railroad,  that  I  want  you  to  consider  for  a  little  time. 
It  is  obviously  unfair,  from  any  broad  economic  stand- 
point, that  these  men,  far  outnumbering  the  organized 
labor  of  the  railroad,  should  be  ignored  when  it  comes 
to  any  general  readjustment  of  its  wages.  Yet,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  this  is  the  very  thing  that  has  been 
coming  to  pass.  And  today  it  is  one  of  the  most  pro- 
nounced symptoms  of  weakness  in  the  great  sick  man 
of  American  business. 


CHAPTER  V 

UNORGANIZED  LABOR THE  MAN  WITH  THE  SHOVEL 

TN  choosing  the  engineer  and  the  conductor  as  the 
•^  two  very  best  types  of  organized  labor  upon  the 
railroad  I  have  had  in  mind  the  special  qualifications 
that  go  with  each.  With  the  engineer  one  instantly 
links  responsibility.  And  I  think  that  in  a  preceding 
chapter  I  showed  you  with  some  definiteness  that  re- 
sponsibility is  never  far  from  the  engine  cab.  With 
the  conductor  one  touches  the  diplomat  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  railroad  service  —  one  of  the  most  frequent  of 
the  railroad's  touching  points  with  the  public  which 
it  aims  to  serve. 

How  about  unorganized  labor — the  great  groups 
of  railroad  workers  who  have  no  brotherhoods  to  look 
out  for  their  rights  or  to  further  their  interests?  Has 
organized  labor  a  monopoly  of  responsibility  or  of 
diplomacy  ?  I  think  not.  And  if  you  will  permit  me, 
I  shall  try  to  show  you  an  unorganized  worker  whose 
responsibility  is  quite  as  constant  and  as  great  as  that 
of  the  men  in  the  engine  cab.  This  man  is  the  one  who 
makes  the  path  for  the  locomotive  safe  —  he  is  the 
track  foreman,  or  section-boss.  And  the  station  agent, 
not  of  the  metropolitan  city  but  rather  of  the  smaller 
cities  or  even  the  villages  that  multiplied  many  times 
make  up  the  America  that  we  all  know,  may  yield 

62 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  63 

nothing  to  the  conductor  in  diplomacy.     Of  him,  more 
in  the  next  chapter. 

Consider  first,  if  you  will,  the  section-boss  —  the  man 
who  makes  the  steel  highway  safe  for  you  and  me  each 
time  we  venture  forth  upon  it.  It  is  obvious  that  no 
amount  of  brains  in  the  engine  cab,  no  skill,  no  sagacity, 
no  reserve  force,  is  going  to  compensate  for  a  neglected 
track.  A  single  broken  rail  may  send  the  best-driven 
locomotive  in  the  world  into  the  ditch  beside  the  right 
of  way,  a  mass  of  tangled  and  useless  scrap  iron.  The 
section  foreman  knows  this.  And  knowing  it  does  not 
diminish  his  own  sense  of  responsibility. 

Sometimes  when  you  sit  in  the  observation  end  of  the 
limited  and  look  back  idly  upon  the  retreating  land- 
scape you  will  see  him,  shovel  in  hand,  standing  beside 
the  track  and  glancing  in  a  dazed  fashion  at  a  fast- 
flying  luxury  which  he  has  never  enjoyed.  He  seems,  at 
first  sight,  to  be  a  fairly  inconsequential  part  in  the 
manifold  details  of  railroad  operation.  Yet  it  would 
be  well  if  you  could  come  a  little  closer  to  this  impor- 
tant human  factor  in  the  comfort  and  the  safety  of  your 
trip ;  could  understand  more  fully  the  difficulties  of  his 
work.  First  you  would  have  to  understand  that  from 
the  very  hour  the  railroad  is  completed  it  requires  con- 
stant and  exacting  care  to  keep  it  from  quick  deteriora- 
tion. Continual  strains  of  the  traffic  and  the  elements, 
seen  and  unseen,  are  wearing  it  out.  Temperature, 
wind,  moisture,  friction,  and  chemical  action  are  doing 
their  best  to  tear  down  the  nicety  of  the  work  of  man 
in  building  the  best  of  his  pathways.  The  effects  of 


64  The  Railroad  Problem 

temperature  —  of  the  wonderful  range  of  heat  and  cold 
which  the  greater  part  of  America  experiences  and 
sometimes  within  a  remarkably  short  space  of  time  — 
are  to  expand,  contract,  and  ofttimes  to  break  the  rails; 
to  sever  telegraph  lines,  the  maintenance  of  which  is  so 
vital  to  the  safe  conduct  of  the  railroad;  to  disrupt  the 
equally  important  signal  service. 

A  single  flat- wheeled  freight  car  went  bumping  up  a 
railroad  side  line  in  Minnesota  on  a  zero  day  a  few 
winters  ago  and  broke  so  many  rails  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  tie  up  the  entire  line  for  twenty-four  hours, 
until  it  could  be  made  fit  for  operation  once  again. 

Track  looks  tough.  In  reality  it  is  a  wonderfully 
sensitive  thing.  Not  only  is  the  rail  itself  a  sensitive 
and  uncertain  thing,  whether  it  weighs  56  pounds  to 
the  yard  or  1 10  pounds  to  the  yard,  but  the  ballast  and 
the  ties,  and  even  the  spikes,  must  be  in  absolute  order 
or  something  is  going  to  happen,  before  long,  to  some 
train  that  goes  rolling  over  them.  A  large  percentage 
of  railroad  accidents,  charged  to  the  account  of  the 
failure  of  mechanism,  is  due  to  this  very  thing.  There- 
fore the  maintenance  of  track  alone  —  to  say  nothing 
of  bridges,  culverts,  switches,  and  signals  —  becomes 
from  the  very  beginning  a  very  vital,  although  little 
understood,  feature  of  railroad  operation. 

Here  then  is  the  floor-plan  of  the  job  of  the  man 
who  stands  there  beside  the  track  as  you  go  whizzing 
by  and  who  salutes  you  joyously  as  you  toss  a  morning 
paper  over  the  brass  rail.  His  own  facilities  for  get- 
ting newspapers  are  rather  limited.  He  is  a  type  —  a 
man  typical,  if  you  please  —  of  400,000  of  his  fellows 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  65 

who  make  the  track  safe  for  you.  The  brigadiers  gen- 
eral of  this  sturdy  corps  of  railroaders  are  the  engineers 
of  the  maintenance  of  way.  A  very  large  road  will 
boast  several  executives  of  this  title,  reporting  in  all 
probability  to  a  chief  engineer  of  maintenance.  Re- 
porting to  these  from  each  superintendent's  division  is 
a  division  engineer — probably  some  chap  out  of  Tech 
who  is  getting  his  first  view  of  railroading  at  extremely 
short  range.  He,  in  turn,  will  have  his  assistants;  but 
he  is  probably  placing  his  chief  reliance  on  his  track 
supervisors. 

Now  we  are  coming  much  closer  to  the  man  whom 
you  see  standing  there  beside  your  train.  These  track 
supervisors  are  the  field-rangers  of  maintenance.  Each 
is  in  charge  of  from  ten  to  twelve  sections,  which  prob- 
ably will  mean  from  eighty  to  one  hundred  miles  of 
single-track — much  less  in  the  case  of  double-  or  three- 
or  four-track  railroads.  The  section  has  its  own  lieu- 
tenant—  section  foreman  he  is  rated  on  the  railroad's 
pay-roll ;  but  in  its  lore  he  will  ever  be  the  section-boss, 
and  boss  of  the  section  he  must  be  indeed.  If  ever 
there  was  need  of  an  autocrat  in  the  railroad  service, 
it  is  right  here ;  and  yet,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  even 
the  section-boss  must  learn  to  temper  his  authority  with 
finesse  and  with  tact. 

Here,  then,  is  our  man  with  the  shovel.  Suppose 
that,  for  this  instant,  the  limited  grinds  to  a  stop,  and 
you  climb  down  to  him  and  see  the  railroad  as  he  sees 
it.  Underneath  him  are  four  or  six  or  eight  workers  — 
perhaps  an  assistant  of  some  sort  or  other.  Over  him 
are  the  supervisors  and  above  them  those  smart  young 


66  The  Railroad  Problem 

engineers  who  can  figure  out  track  with  lines  and  pot- 
hooks, though  the  section-boss  is  never  sure  that  his 
keen  eye  and  unfailing  intuition  are  not  better  than  all 
those  books  which  the  college  boys  keep  tucked  under 
their  arms. 

The  college  boys,  however,  seem  to  have  the  sway 
with  the  big  bosses  down  at  headquarters  and  the  sec- 
tion-boss knows,  in  his  heart  as  well  as  in  his  mind, 
that  he  can  go  only  a  little  distance  ahead  before  he 
comes  against  a  solid  wall,  the  only  doors  of  which  are 
marked  Technical  Education.  He  can  be  a  supervisor 
at  from  $90  to  $125  a  month  and  ride  up  and  down 
the  division  at  the  rear  door  of  a  local  train  six  days  a 
week;  the  time  has  gone  when  he  might  advance  to  the 
proud  title  of  roadmaster  —  a  proud  title  whose  emolu- 
ment is  not  higher  than  that  of  the  organized  brother- 
hood man  who  pulls  the  throttle  on  the  way-freight  up 
the  branch.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  only 
a  few  roads  which  nowadays  cling  even  to  the  title  of 
roadmaster. 

Yet  this  man  is  not  discouraged.  It  is  not  his  way. 
He  will  tell  you  so  himself. 

" Go  up ?"  he  asks.    "Go  up  where?" 

Let  the  limited  go,  without  you.  This  man  is 
worthy  of  your  studied  attention.  Give  it  to  him.  You 
are  standing  with  him  beside  a  curving  bit  of  single- 
track.  The  country  is  soft  and  restful  and  quiet,  save 
for  the  chattering  of  the  crickets  and  the  distant  call  of 
your  train  which  has  gone  a-roaring  down  the  line. 
The  August  day  is  indolent  —  but  the  section  gang  is 
not.  The  temperature  is  close  to  ninety,  but  the  gang 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  67 

is  tamping  at  the  track  with  the  enthusiasm  of  volun- 
teer firemen  at  a  blaze  in  a  lumberyard.  It  is  only  its 
foreman  who  has  deigned  to  give  you  a  few  minutes  of 
his  attention. 

"Up  where ?"  he  asks  once  again  —  then  answers 
his  own  question:  "To  some  stuffy  sort  of  office?  Not 
by  a  long  shot !  I'm  built  for  the  road,  for  track  work. 
This  road  needs  me  here.  We're  only  single-track  as 
yet  on  this  division;  but  next  summer  we'll  be  getting 
eastbound  and  westbound,  and  then  a  bigger  routing  of 
the  through  stuff.  Tonight  the  fastest  through  train 
in  this  state  will  come  through  here,  at  nearer  seventy 
miles  an  hour  than  sixty,  and  my  track's  got  to  be  in 
order — every  foot  of  the  37,000  feet  of  it" 

"That's  your  job,"  you  say  to  him. 

"  Part  of  it,"  he  replies.  "  My  job  is  seven  miles 
long  and  has  more  kinks  to  it  than  an  eel's  tail.  See 
here!" 

He  points  to  a  splice-bar,  almost  under  your  feet. 
You  look  at  it.  You  are  frank  to  admit  that  it  looks 
just  like  any  other  splice-bar  that  you  have  ever  seen; 
but  the  section-boss  shows  you  a  discoloration  on  it, 
hardly  larger  than  a  silver  dollar. 

"  Salt  water  from  a  leaky  refrigerator  car  did  that. 
We've  got  to  look  out  for  it  all  the  time  —  especially 
on  the  bridges." 

You  choke  a  desire  to  ask  him  how  he  knows  and 
merely  inquire: 

"Are  you  responsible  for  the  bridges  too?" 

"To  the  extent  of  seeing  that  they  are  O.K.  for 
train  movement.  My  job  includes  tracks,  switches, 


68  The  Railroad  Problem 

drains,  crossings,  switch  and  semaphore  lamps.  We  get 
out  on  our  old  hand-power  Mallet  here  and  make  every 
sort  of  emergency  repair  you  can  think  of  —  and  then 
some  more  —  on  telegraph  wires,  culverts,  signals,  and 
the  interlocking.  We've  got  to  know  the  time  card  and 
keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  regular  trains.  Every  little 
while  a  special  comes  along  and  we  have  to  dump  our 
little  Pullman  in  the  ditch  —  without  much  time  for 
ceremony.  We've  got  to  know  as  much  about  flagging 
as  the  trainmen.  And  sometimes  we  have  to  act  as 
sextons." 

"Sextons?"  you  venture. 

He  thumbs  a  little  notebook. 

"Last  year  I  performed  the  last  rites  over  seven 
cows,  two  sheep,  and  a  horse.  My  job  has  a  lot  of 
dimensions." 

He  puts  his  book  back  in  his  pocket  and  draws  out 
a  circular  letter  which  the  general  manager  at  head- 
quarters has  been  sending  out  to  all  the  track-bosses. 
He  hands  it  to  you,  with  a  grin.  It  says : 

More  than  any  other  class  of  employees  you  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  close  contact  with  the  farmers  who  are  producing 
today  that  which  means  tonnage  and  therefore  revenue  for  the 
company  tomorrow.  Have  you  ever  thought  of  cultivating  the 
farmer  as  he  is  cultivating  the  fields?  A  friendly  chat  over  the 
fence,  a  wave  of  the  hand  as  you  pass  by,  may  mean  a  shipment 
of  corn  or  cattle  —  just  because  you  are  interested  in  him.  For 
your  company's  welfare  as  well  as  your  own,  cultivate  the 
farmer. 

The  railroad  can  and  does  do  a  lot  of  efficient  solicita- 
tion through  its  fixed  employees  in  the  field;  the  oppor- 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  69 

tunities  of  the  station  agent  in  this  wise  are  particularly 
large.  And  there  is  a  good  deal  of  real  sense  in  this 
particular  circular.  Yet  the  section-boss  seems  to 
regard  it  as  distinctly  humorous. 

"  The  big  boss  sits  in  his  office  or  in  his  car,"  is  his 
comment,  "  and  I  think  he  forgets  sometimes  that  he 
was  once  a  section  man  himself  and  working  fourteen 
hours  a  day.  The  farmer  doesn't  have  a  lot  of  time 
for  promiscuous  conversation,  nor  do  we.  We'll  wave 
the  hand  all  right  —  but  a  chat  over  the  fence?  Along 
would  come  my  supervisor  and  I  might  have  a  time  of  it 
explaining  to  him  that  I  was  trying  to  sell  two  tickets 
to  California  for  the  road.  No,  sir,  we're  not  hanging 
very  much  over  fences  and  chatting  to  farmers.  Under 
the  very  best  conditions  we  work  about  ten  hours  a  day. 
And  there  are  times  when  a  sixteen-hour  law,  even  if 
we  had  one,  wouldn't  be  of  much  account  to  us." 

"What  times?" 

"  Accidents  and  storms !  When  we  get  a  smash-up 
on  this  section  or  on  one  of  my  neighbors'  we  all  turn 
to  and  help  the  wrecking  crew.  I've  worked  fifty-one 
hours  with  no  more  than  a  snatch  of  sleep  and  without 
getting  out  of  my  clothing — and  that  was  both  acci- 
dent and  storm.  It's  storm  that  counts  the  most  It's 
nice  and  pretty  out  here  today,  even  if  a  little  warmish. 
Come  round  here  next  February,  when  the  wind  begins 
to  whistle  and  the  mercury  is  trying  to  hide  in  the 
bottom  of  its  little  tube,  and  help  me  replace  rails  in  a 
snow-packed  track." 

Against  conditions  such  as  these  the  railroad  finds 
no  little  difficulty  in  securing  good  trackmen.  The 


70  The  Railroad  Problem 

section-boss  will  tell  you  how,  until  about  twenty  years 
ago,  these  were  largely  Irishmen,  with  a  fair  mixture 
of  Germans  and  Scots  —  even  a  few  Englishmen.  The 
Italians  began  coming  over  in  droves  a  little  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  and  almost  the  first  men 
they  displaced  were  the  Irish  trackmen  on  our  railroads. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  fairer  to  say  they  took  the  jobs 
which  the  Irishmen  were  beginning  to  scorn.  The  lat- 
ter preferred  to  become  contractors,  politicians,  law- 
yers. What  is  the  use  of  driving  like  a  slave  all  day 
long,  they  argued,  when  you  can  earn  five  times  as 
much  by  using  your  wits? 

Of  recent  years  there  have  been  few  Irishmen  in 
track  service  —  an  occasional  section-boss  like  the  man 
to  whom  we  have  just  been  talking  —  and  with  the 
exception  of  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,  practically  none 
of  the  men  from  the  north  of  Europe.  Even  the  better 
grades  of  Italians  have  begun  to  turn  from  track  work. 
They,  too,  make  good  contractors  and  politicians  and 
lawyers.  In  the  stead  of  these  have  come  the  men  from 
the  south  of  Italy,  Greeks,  Slavs,  a  few  Poles,  and  a 
few  Huns.  These  seem  particularly  to  lack  intelli- 
gence. Yet  they  seemingly  are  all  that  the  railroad 
may  draw  upon  for  its  track  maintenance. 

These  were  the  conditions  that  prevailed  up  to  the 
beginning  of  the  Great  War  in  Europe.  Since  that 
time  the  situation  has  grown  steadily  worse.  With  the 
tightening  of  the  labor  market,  with  the  inadequate 
rates  of  pay  in  both  the  car  and  right  of  way  mainte- 
nance departments  of  the  railroads,  the  average  rail- 
road manager  is  hard  pressed  today  to  keep  his  line 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  71 

in  order.  Sometimes  he  fails.  And  a  distinct  factor 
in  the  run-down  condition  of  so  many  of  our  second- 
and  third-  and  fourth-grade  railroads  is  not  alone  their 
financial  condition,  to  which  we  already  have  referred, 
but  quite  as  much  their  utter  inability  to  summon  track 
labor  at  any  price  within  their  possibility.  It  is  rather 
difficult,  to  say  the  least,  to  get  a  section  foreman 
at  three  dollars  a  day  when  Henry  Ford  is  paying  five 
dollars  as  a  minimum  wage  in  his  Detroit  factory  and 
munition  manufacturers  are  even  going  ahead  of  this 
figure.  I  myself  have  seen  grass  growing  this  last  sum- 
mer in  the  tracks  of  some  mighty  good  roads.  And 
weeds  between  the  ties  and  the  rails  are  all  too  apt  to  be 
the  indication  of  even  worse  conditions — not  quite 
so  perceptible  to  the  eye. 

It  is  this  very  polyglot  nature  of  the  men  who  work 
upon  the  track  which  has  operated  against  their  being 
brought  into  a  brotherhood  —  such  as  those  who  man 
the  freight  and  passenger  trains.  The  isolation  of  the 
section-bosses  and  their  gangs,  as  well  as  the  dominance 
of  the  padrone  system  among  the  Italians  until  very 
recently,  have  been  other  factors  against  a  stout  union 
of  the  trackmen.  But  the  mixture  of  tongues  and  races 
has  been  the  chief  objection.  You  do  not  find  Italians 
or  Slavs  or  Poles  or  Greeks  on  the  throttle  side  of  the 
locomotive  cab  or  wearing  the  conductor's  uniform  in 
passenger  service,  although  you  will  find  them  many 
times  in  the  caboose  of  the  freight  and  the  Negro  fire- 
man is  rather  a  knotty  problem  with  the  chief  of  that 
big  brotherhood.  In  fact,  it  has  been  rather  a  steady 


72  The  Railroad  Problem 

boast  of  the  engineers  and  the  conductors  that  their 
great  organizations  are  composed  of  Americans.  That 
fact,  of  itself,  is  peculiarly  significant. 

Yet  what  are  Americans?  And  how  many  of  those 
fine  fellows  who  drive  locomotives  and  who  captain 
fancy  trains  will  fail  to  find  some  part  of  their  ancestry 
in  Europe,  within  three  or  four  generations  at  the  long- 
est? We  have  shown  that  responsibility  is  not  a  matter 
of  color,  of  race,  nor  of  language.  And  it  is  respon- 
sibility—  responsibility  plus  energy  and  ability  and  hon- 
esty—  that  the  railroad  seeks  to  obtain  when  it  goes 
into  the  market  to  purchase  labor. 

The  day  has  come  when  the  railroad  has  begun  to 
take  keener  notice  of  the  personnel  of  the  men  to  whom 
is  given  the  actual  labor  of  keeping  the  track  in  order. 
The  better  roads  offer  prizes  to  the  foremen  for  the 
best-kept  sections.  The  prizes  are  substantial.  They 
need  to  be.  With  hard  work  as  the  seeming  reward  in 
this  branch  of  service  the  railroad,  even  before  the  com- 
ing of  the  war,  was  no  longer  able  to  pick  and  choose 
from  hordes  of  applicants.  A  dozen  years  ago  it  began 
to  fairly  dragnet  the  labor  markets  of  the  largest  cities; 
and  when  it  gets  men  it  has  to  use  them  with  a  degree 
of  consideration  that  was  not  even  dreamed  of  in  other 
days. 

No  longer  can  an  autocratic  and  brutal  foreman 
stand  and  curse  at  his  section  hands.  They  simply  will 
not  stand  for  it.  "  Bawlers-out,"  as  the  worst  of  these 
fellows  used  to  be  known  along  the  line,  are  not  now 
in  fashion.  And  the  track  supervisor  who  used  to  stand 
on  the  rear  platform  of  a  train  and  toss  out  "  butter- 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  73 

flies "  is  far  more  careful  in  his  criticism.  "  Butter- 
flies," be  it  known,  are  indited  by  the  supervisor  en 
route  to  call  the  attention  of  the  foremen  to  track 
defects  in  their  sections. 

The  Negro  is  still  in  large  service  in  the  South  — 
below  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the  Mississippi.  He  is  a 
good  trackman  —  and  with  the  labor  market  as  it  stands 
today,  drained  to  the  bottom,  it  is  a  pity  there  are  not 
more  of  him.  Unlike  most  of  the  south-of-Europe 
men,  he  has  strength  and  stamina  for  heavy,  sustained 
work.  Moreover,  he  is  built  to  rhythm.  If  you  can 
set  his  work  to  syncopated  time  he  seems  never  to  tire 
of  it.  He  is  a  real  artist.  He  cuts  six  or  eight  inches 
off  the  handle  of  his  sledge  hammer  and  it  becomes  his 
"  short  dog."  Gripping  it  at  the  end  with  both  hands 
he  swings  it  completely  around  his  head  and  strikes 
two  blows  to  the  white  man's  one,  no  matter  how  clever 
the  white  man  may  be.  And  he  is  actually  fond  of  a 
bawler-out.  He  respects  a  real  boss. 

The  hobo  trackman  is  in  a  class  by  himself.  He  is 
not  the  migratory  creature  that  you  may  imagine  him. 
On  the  contrary,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  can  be 
classed  by  distinct  districts.  Thus  he  may  be  known  as 
a  St.  Paul  man,  a  Chicago  man,  or  a  Kansas  City  man, 
and  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  he  will  venture  only  a 
certain  limited  distance  from  his  favorite  haunts.  In 
the  spring,  however,  he  generally  is  so  hungry  that  he 
is  quite  willing  to  undertake  any  sort  of  job  at  any  old 
price,  provided  free  railroad  tickets  are  given. 

The  majority  of  these  hoboes  have  had  experience 


74  The  Railroad  Problem 

with  the  shovel.  Some  of  them  know  more  about  track 
than  their  foremen.  Unless  the  section-boss  has  had 
previous  experience  with  hoboes,  however,  he  will  get 
no  benefit  from  their  superior  knowledge,  but  will  be 
left  to  work  out  his  problem  entirely  alone. 

As  a  rule  the  hobo  becomes  independently  rich  on 
the  acquisition  of  ten  dollars.  Then  he  turns  his  face 
toward  that  town  to  which  he  gives  his  devoted  alle- 
giance. He  now  has  money  to  pay  fares;  but  he  does 
not  pay  them.  Summer  is  on  the  land  and  he  likes  to 
protract  the  joys  of  the  road ;  so  he  beats  his  way  slowly 
home  and  leaves  a  record  of  his  migration  executed  in  a 
chirography  that  is  nothing  less  than  marvelous.  The 
day  that  masonry  went  out  of  fashion  in  railroad  con- 
struction and  concrete  came  in  was  a  bonanza  to  him. 
On  the  flat  concrete  surfaces  of  bridge  abutments  and 
piers,  telephone  houses  and  retaining  walls,  he  marks 
the  record  of  his  going  and  whither  he  is  bound  — 
and  marks  it  so  plainly  with  thick,  black  paint  that  even 
he  who  rides  upon  the  fastest  of  the  limited  trains  may 
read  —  although  it  may  not  be  given  to  him  to  ever 
understand. 

Down  in  the  Southwest  the  track  laborer  is  Mexican, 
while  in  the  Far  West  he  is  a  little  brown  man,  with 
poetry  in  his  soul  and  a  vast  amount  of  energy  in  his 
strong  little  arms.  The  Japanese  invasion  has  been 
something  of  a  godsend  to  the  railroads  beyond  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  Up  in  British  Columbia,  where 
John  Chinaman  is  not  in  legal  disfavor,  you  will  find 
him  a  track  laborer— faithful  and  efficient.  On  the 
Canadian  Pacific  seventeen  per  cent  of  the  total  force 


The  Man  With  the  Shovel  75 

of  trackmen  is  Chinese.  At  the  west  end  of  that  Cana- 
dian transcontinental,  the  track  gangs  almost  exclu- 
sively are  Chinese. 

The  Jap  is  not  illegal  in  the  United  States,  however, 
and  he  is  turning  rapidly  to  railroading.  It  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  he  is  the  best  track  laborer  our  railroads 
have  known.  He  is  energetic,  receptive,  ambitious, 
intelligent,  and  therefore  easily  instructed.  His  mind 
being  retentive,  he  rarely  has  to  be  told  a  thing  a  second 
time.  Though  small,  he  is  robust  and  possessed  of 
powers  of  endurance  far  beyond  any  other  race.  Fur- 
thermore, he  is  cleanly — bathing  and  changing  his 
clothes  several  times  a  week.  His  camp  is  always  sani- 
tary and  he  prides  himself  on  the  thoroughness  of  his 
work.  You  may  be  sure  he  is  carrying  a  Japanese- 
English  dictionary  and  that  from  it  he  is  learning  his 
three  English  words  a  day.  Track  workers  from  the 
south  of  Europe  will  spend  a  lifetime  without  ever 
learning  a  single  word  of  English. 

There  is  another  class  of  Asiatic  workers  that  in 
recent  years  has  begun  to  show  itself  along  the  west 
coast  and  this  class  is  far  less  satisfactory  in  every  way. 
These  are  the  Hindus.  They  have  drifted  across  the 
Seven  Seas  and  marched  into  a  new  land  through  the 
gates  of  San  Francisco  or  Portland  or  Seattle.  But  as 
yet  they  have  not  come  in  sufficient  numbers  to  repre- 
sent a  new  problem  in  American  railroading.  The 
Japanese  already  have  attained  that  distinction. 

Here,  then,  is  the  polyglot  material  with  which  our 
section-boss  must  work.  His  name  may  be  Smith,  he 
may  have  come  out  of  New  England  itself,  and  his  little 


76  The  Railroad  Problem 

house  there  beside  the  track  is  probably  as  neat  as 
yours  or  mine.  He  works  long  hours  and  hard,  with 
his  body,  his  hands,  and  his  mind;  the  men  under  his 
authority  are  more  apt  to  be  inefficient  than  efficient; 
his  responsibility  is  unceasing.  It  is  not  an  easy  job. 
And  for  it  he  is  paid  from  sixty-five  to  ninety  dollars  a 
month  —  rarely  more.  A  locomotive  engineer  is  paid 
three  times  as  much.  Yet  he  is  protected  by  the  eight- 
hour  day  as  his  standard  of  employment,  although  it 
is  more  than  likely  that  his  actual  hours  of  work  may 
be  even  less  than  eight.  And  his  responsibility  is  little 
greater  than  that  of  the  section-boss. 


CHAPTER  VI 

UNORGANIZED  LABOR THE  STATION  AGENT 

THE  primary  schools  of  railroading  are  the  little 
red  and  yellow  and  gray  buildings  that  one  finds 
up  and  down  the  steel  highways  of  the  nation,  dotting 
big  lines  and  small.  You  find  at  least  one  in  every 
American  town  that  thinks  itself  worthy  of  the  title. 
And  they  are  hardly  less  to  the  towns  themselves  than 
the  red  schoolhouses  of  only  a  little  greater  tradi- 
tional lore.  To  the  railroad  their  importance  can 
hardly  be  minimized.  They  are  its  tentacles  —  the 
high  spots  and  the  low  where  it  touches  its  territory 
and  its  patrons. 

To  best  understand  how  a  station  agent  measures 
to  his  job,  let  us  do  as  we  have  done  heretofore  and 
take  one  of  them  who  is  typical.  Here  is  one  man  who 
in  personality  and  environment  is  representative  and 
the  small  New  York  State  town  in  which  he  is  the  rail- 
road's agent  is  typical  of  tens  of  thousands  of  others  all 
the  way  from  Maine  to  California.  Brier  Hill  is  an 
old-fashioned  village  of  less  than  10,000  population, 
albeit  it  is  a  county  seat  and  the  gateway  to  a  prosperous 
and  beautiful  farming  district.  Two  railroads  reach 
it  by  their  side  lines,  which  means  competition  and  the 
fact  that  the  agent  for  each  must  be  a  considerable 
man  and  on  the  job  about  all  of  the  time.  Our  man  — 

77 


78  The  Railroad  Problem 

we  will  call  him  Blinks  and  his  road  the  Great  Midland 
—  has  never  lived  or  worked  in  another  town.  Thirty 
years  ago  he  entered  the  service  of  the  G.M.  as  a  gen- 
eral utility  boy  around  the  old  brick  depot  at  twelve 
dollars  a  month.  The  old  brick  depot  is  still  in  service 
and  so  is  Blinks. 

In  thirty  years  his  pay  has  been  advanced.  He  now 
gets  $i  10  a  month;  in  addition  his  commissions  amount 
to  $40  or  $50  a  month.  Engineers  and  conductors  get 
much  more,  but  the  station  agent,  as  we  have  come  to 
understand,  is  not  protected  by  a  powerful  labor  organ- 
ization. There  is  an  Order  of  Railroad  Station  Agents, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  is  weak  and  hardly  to  be  compared 
with  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers  or  the 
Order  of  Railroad  Trainmen.  In  some  cases  the  station 
agents  rising  from  a  telegraph  key  have  never  relin- 
quished their  membership  in  the  telegraphers'  union. 
But,  with  the  telephone  almost  accepted  as  a  complete 
success  in  the  dispatching  of  trains,  the  railroads  see  a 
new  opportunity  for  the  efficient  use  of  men  who  have 
been  crippled  in  the  service ;  in  some  cases  for  the  widows 
and  the  daughters  of  men  who  have  died  in  the  ranks. 
It  takes  aptitude,  long  months,  and  sometimes  years  to 
learn  the  rapid  use  of  the  telegraph.  A  clear  mind  and 
quick  wit  are  all  that  is  necessary  when  the  long-distance 
telephone  moves  .the  trains  up  and  down  the  line. 

Blinks,  being  typical,  does  not  belong  to  a  labor 
organization.  Although  he  was  an  expert  telegrapher 
with  a  high  speed  rate,  he  did  not  happen  to  belong  to 
the  telegraphers'  organization.  Instead  there  is  in  him 
a  fine  vein  of  old-fashioned  loyalty  to  the  property. 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       79 

He  was  all  but  born  in  the  service  of  the  Great  Mid- 
land; he  expects  to  die  in  the  harness  there  in  his  homely 
old-fashioned  office  in  the  brick  depot  at  Brier  Hill. 
His  is  the  sort  of  loyalty  whose  value  to  the  road 
can  hardly  be  expressed  in  mere  dollars  and  cents. 

If  you  would  like  to  know  the  truth  of  the  matter, 
you  would  quickly  come  to  know  that  the  real  rea- 
son why  Blinks  has  never  joined  a  union  is  that  he 
holds  an  innate  and  unexpressed  feeling  that  he  is  a 
captain  in  the  railroad  army,  rather  than  a  private  in 
its  ranks.  For  he  is  secretly  proud  of  the  "  force " 
that  reports  to  him  —  chief  clerk,  ticket  agent,  two 
clerks,  a  baggagemaster,  and  three  freight-house  men. 
Not  a  man  of  these  draws  less  than  seventy  dollars  a 
month,  so  there  is  not  much  difference  in  their  social 
status  and  that  of  the  boss.  No  one  has  been  quicker 
than  he  to  recognize  such  democracy.  He  prides  him- 
self that  he  is  an  easy  captain. 

"We  work  here  together  like  a  big  family,"  he  will 
tell  you,  "  although  I'm  quite  of  the  opinion  that  we're 
about  the  best  little  collection  of  teamwork  here  in  the 
village.  Together  we  make  quite  an  aggregate.  Only 
two  concerns  here  employ  more  help  —  the  paper  mill 
and  the  collar  factory." 

You  are  a  bit  astonished  at  that — and  at  that  you 
begin  to  think — not  of  the  relation  of  the  town  to  the 
railroad  but  rather  of  the  railroad  to  the  town.  You 
ask  Blinks  as  to  the  volume  of  the  business  his  road 
does  at  his  station.  He  hesitates  in  replying.  That 
is  rather  a  state  secret.  Finally  he  tells  you  —  although 
still  as  a  secret. 


80  The  Railroad  Problem 

uWe  do  a  business  of  $50,000  a  month,"  he  says 
quietly,  "  which  is  as  much  as  any  two  industries  here  — 
and  this  time  I'm  making  no  exceptions  of  the  paper  mill 
or  the  collar  factory." 

Quickly  he  explains  that  this  is  no  unusual  figure. 
And  figures  do  not  always  indicate.  Smithville,  up  on 
another  division,  is  only  a  third  as  large  and  does  a 
business  of  $20,000  a  month.  There  are  paper  mills 
here  and  inasmuch  as  they  handle  their  products  in 
carload  lots  on  their  own  sidings  there  is  need  of  a 
large  force  around  the  station.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
neighboring  town  of  the  same  size  shows  about  the 
same  monthly  revenue  and  needs  a  station  force  much 
larger  than  Blinks's.  For  its  leading  industry  is  a 
paint  factory,  without  siding  facilities.  Its  products 
move  in  comparatively  small  individual  boxes,  requiring 
individual  care  and  handling  —  that  is  the  answer. 

uYou  work  long  hours  and  hard  hours?"  you  may 
demand  of  Blinks. 

He  shakes  his  head  slowly. 

"  Long  hours  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  but  not  very 
often  hard  hours,"  he  tells  you.  "  My  work  is  com- 
plicated and  diverse  but  it  is  largely  a  case  of  having  it 
organized." 

Indeed  it  is  complicated  and  diverse.  There  are  only 
four  passenger  trains  each  day  up  and  down  the  line, 
but  the  rush  of  freight  is  heavy,  particularly  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year.  And  both  of  these  functions  of 
the  railroad  as  they  relate  to  Blinks's  town  come  under 
his  watchful  eye.  In  addition,  remember  that  he  is 
the  express  agent  and  is  paid  a  commission  both  on  the 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       81 

business  bound  in  and  on  the  business  bound  out  of  his 
office,  as  well  as  the  representative  of  the  telegraph 
company.  The  telegraph  company  pays  him  nothing 
for  handling  its  messages,  but  from  the  express  com- 
pany he  will  probably  average  forty-five  dollars  a 
month,  particularly  as  his  brisk  county-seat  town  is 
one  in  which  the  small-package  traffic  does  not  greatly 
vary  at  any  season  of  the  year.  Down  in  the  South- 
west, where  a  great  amount  of  foodstuffs  moves  out 
by  express  within  a  very  few  weeks  there  are  men 
who  may,  in  two  months,  take  several  hundred  dol- 
lars, perhaps  a  check  into  four  figures  from  the  express 
company.  The  gateway  to  a  summer  resort  is  re- 
garded as  something  of  the  same  sort  of  a  bonanza  to 
the  station  agent.  Still  Blinks,  if  he  would,  could  tell 
you  of  a  man  at  a  famous  resort  gateway  who  lost 
his  job  through  it.  The  president  of  his  road  was  a 
stickler  for  appearances.  On  a  bright  summer  day 
when  vacation  traffic  was  running  at  flood  tide,  his  car 
came  rolling  into  the  place.  Word  of  it  came  to  the 
station  agent,  but  the  station  agent  was  lost  in  an 
avalanche  of  express  way-bills.  He  should  have  been 
out  on  the  platform  in  his  pretty  new  cap  and  uni- 
form. At  least  that  was  what  the  president  thought. 
So  nowadays  that  station  agent  gives  all  his  time  to  the 
express  way-bills.  There  is  a  new  man  for  the  cap 
and  uniform,  and  when  the  president  of  that  railroad 
arrives  in  the  town  he  is  greeted  with  sufficient  formal- 
ity. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  express  companies  prefer 
to  maintain  offices  wherever  it  is  at  all  possible.     The 


82  The  Railroad  Problem 

bonanza  offices  for  the  railroad  agents  are  few  and 
far  between  and  when  the  railroad  begins  to  find  them 
it  is  apt  to  part.  So  Blinks  can  consider  himself  lucky 
that  his  commissions  do  not  run  over  fifty  dollars  a 
month.  That  means  that  the  express  company  will  not 
attempt  anything  as  suicidal  as  establishing  its  own 
office  in  Brier  Hill  and  his  own  modest  perquisite  is 
not  apt  to  be  interrupted. 

His  is  routine  work  and  intricate  work.  He  writes 
enough  letters  in  a  week  to  do  credit  to  a  respectable 
correspondence  school  and  he  makes  enough  reports 
in  seven  days  to  run  three  businesses.  His  incoming 
mail  arrives  like  a  flood.  There  are  tariffs,  bulletins, 
more  tariffs,  instructions,  more  tariffs,  suggestions  — 
and  still  more  tariffs.  The  tariffs,  both  freight  and 
passenger,  are  fairly  encyclopedic  in  dimensions  and 
the  folks  down  at  headquarters  fondly  imagine  that 
he  has  memorized  them.  At  least  that  seems  to  be 
their  assumption  if  Blinks  can  judge  from  their  let- 
ters. Every  department  of  the  road  requests  informa- 
tion of  him,  and  gets  it.  And  when  he  is  done  with 
the  railroad  he  realizes  that  he  is  violating  biblical 
injunction  and  serving  two  masters,  at  least.  For  the 
express  company  is  fairly  prolific  with  its  own  tariffs 
and  other  literature.  And  the  telegraph  company  has 
many  things  also  to  say  to  Blinks  there  in  the  old  brick 
depot. 

Yet  the  wonder  of  it  is  that  Blinks  endures  it  all  — 
not  only  endures  but  actually  thrives  under  it.  In  a 
single  hour  while  you  are  sitting  in  his  dingy,  homy 
little  office  just  back  of  the  ticket  cage,  you  can  see 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       83 

the  press  of  work  upon  him.  He  has  just  finished 
a  four-page  report  to  the  legal  department,  explain- 
ing the  likelihood  of  the  road's  being  able  to  stave  off 
that  demand  for  an  overhead  crossing  just  back  of  the 
town;  there  is  a  letter  on  his  desk  from  the  general 
freight  agent  asking  him  for  a  "  picture  "  of  the  busi- 
ness at  Brier  Hill,  which  means  a  careful  analysis  of 
its  industries  and  trade  —  not  an  easy  job  of  itself. 
There  is  an  express  package  of  $25,000  in  gold  des- 
tined to  a  local  bank,  over  in  the  corner  of  the  ticket 
cage.  Blinks  keeps  a  bit  of  watchfulness  for  that 
"value  package  "  down  in  the  corner  of  his  mind  while 
a  thousand  things  press  in  upon  it.  Number  Four  is 
almost  within  hearing  when  a  young  man  and  his  wife 
appear  at  the  window,  baggage  in  hand,  and  demand  a 
ticket  via  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  and  Sedalia  to  Musko- 
gee.  The  young  ticket  clerk  tears  madly  through  a 
few  dozen  tariffs,  scratches  his  head  blankly — and 
Blinks  has  to  jump  into  the  breach.  In  thirty  seconds 
he  has  the  right  tariff. 

"  I  think  the  through  one  way  is  thirty-four  sixteen," 
he  smiles  at  the  patrons,  ubut  I  had  better  look  up  and 
make  sure." 

His  memory  was  right — but  Blinks  takes  no  chances. 

"Can  we  get  a  stop-over  at  Urbana?"  asks  the 
woman. 

The  station  agent  dives  into  a  tariff,  after  a  moment 
nods  "yes." 

"Wonder  if  we  could  go  around  by  Jefferson  City 
and  stop  off  there?"  inquires  the  man,  "I've  relatives 
there." 


84  The  Railroad  Problem 

Blinks  starts  to  say  "yes»"  then  hesitates.  Wasn't 
there  a  special  bulletin  issued  by  the  Missouri  Pacific 
covering  that  detour?  or  was  it  the  Katy?  He  finds  his 
way  through  twenty  or  thirty  tariff  supplements.  He 
knows  that  if  he  makes  a  mistake  he  not  only  will 
be  censured,  but  will  probably  be  forced  to  make  good 
the  mistake  from  his  own  pocket  —  according  to  the 
ruling  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law,  which  he  feels 
is  yet  to  be  his  nemesis. 

Number  Four  is  almost  near  enough  to  hear  the 
hissing  of  her  valves  but  he  tells  his  patrons  not  to 
worry  —  she  has  a  deal  of  express  matter  to  handle 
this  morning  and  will  tarry  two  or  three  minutes  at 
the  station.  He  finds  the  right  ticket  forms,  clips  and 
pastes  them,  stamps  and  punches  them,  until  he  has 
two  long  green  and  yellow  contracts  each  calling  for 
the  passage  of  a  person  from  his  town  to  Muskogee. 
Incidentally  he  finds  time  to  sell  a  little  sheaf  of  trav- 
elers' checks  and  an  accident  insurance  policy  in  addi- 
tion to  promising  to  telegraph  down  to  the  junction 
to  reserve  Pullman  space.  In  six  or  seven  minutes  he 
has  completed  an  important  passenger  transaction,  with 
rare  accuracy.  Rare  accuracy,  did  we  say?  We  were 
mistaken.  That  sort  of  accuracy  is  common  among 
the  station  agents  of  America. 

When  the  nervous,  hurried,  accurate  transaction  is 
done  you  might  expect  Blinks  to  rail  against  the  judg- 
ment of  travelers  who  wait  until  the  last  minute  to  buy 
tickets  involving  a  trip  over  a  group  of  railroads.  But 
that  is  not  the  way  of  Blinks. 

"  I  could  have  sent  them  down  to  the  junction  on  a 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       85 

local  ticket  and  let  them  get  their  through  tickets  there. 
But  I  like  those  tickets  on  my  receipt  totals  and  I'm 
rather  proud  of  the  fact  that  they've  made  this  a  coupon 

station.     My   rival  here  on   the   R road   has 

to  send  down  to  headquarters  for  blank  tickets  and 
a  punch  whenever  he  hears  in  advance  of  a  party 
that's  going  to  make  a  trip  and  a  clerk  down  there 
figures  out  the  rate.  We  make  our  own  rates  and 
folks  know  they  can  get  through  tickets  at  short 


notice." 


That  means  business  and  Blinks  knows  that  it  means 
business. 

"  But  he  almost  had  me  stumped  on  that  alternative 
route  via  Jefferson  City,"  he  laughs.  "They  catch  us 
up  mighty  quickly  these  days  if  we  make  mistakes  of 
that  sort." 

The  Interstate  Commerce  Law,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  a  pretty  rigid  thing  and  lest  a  perfectly  virtuous 
railroad  should  be  accused  of  making  purposeful  "mis- 
takes" in  quoting  the  wrong  rate,  it  insists  that  the 
agent  himself  shall  pay  the  difference  when  he  fails  to 
charge  the  patron  the  fully  established  rate  for  either 
passenger  or  freight  transportation.  In  fact  it  does 
more.  It  demands  that  the  agent  shall  seek  out  the 
patron  and  make  him  pay  the  dollars  and  cents  of  the 
error,  which  is  rather  nice  in  theory  but  difficult  in 
execution.  The  average  citizen  does  not  live  in  any 
great  fear  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law. 

Blinks,  being  a  practical  sort  of  railroader,  is  will- 
ing to  tell  you  of  the  line  as  it  works  today  —  of  the 
problems  and  the  perplexities  that  constantly  con- 


86  The  Railroad  Problem 

front  him.  And  occasionally  he  gives  thought  to  his 
rival,  whose  little  depot  is  on  the  far  side  of  the 
village. 

"  Now  Fremont  is  up  against  it,"  he  tells  you  confi- 
dentially. "His  road  is  different  from  ours.  We 
have  built  up  a  pretty  good  reputation  for  our  service. 
My  job  is  a  man's  job  but  at  least  I  don't  have  to 
apologize  for  our  road.  Fremont  does.  His  road  is 
rotten  and  he  knows  it.  He  knows  when  he  sells  a 
man  a  ticket  through  to  California  or  even  down  to 
New  York  that  the  train  is  going  to  be  a  poor  one, 
made  up  of  old  equipment,  probably  late,  and  certainly 
overcrowded.  And  if  it's  a  shipper  Fremont  knows 
that  there  is  a  good  chance  that  his  car  is  going  to 
get  caught  in  some  one  of  their  inadequate  yards  and 
perhaps  be  held  a  week  on  a  back  siding. 

"  It  keeps  Fremont  guessing.  His  business  is  not 
more  than  half  of  mine  and  he  has  to  work  three 
times  as  hard  to  get  it.  He  catches  it  from  every  cor- 
ner and  starves  along  on  a  bare  eighty  dollars  a  month. 
And  they  are  not  even  decent  enough  to  give  him  any- 
thing like  this." 

He  delves  into  an  inner  pocket  and  pulls  out  a  leather 
pass  wallet.  It  is  a  "system  annual"  —  a  magic  card 
which  permits  his  wife  or  himself  to  travel  over  all 
the  main  lines  and  side  lines  of  the  big  road,  at  their 
will.  He  gives  it  a  genuine  look  of  affection  before 
he  replaces  it. 

"When  a  man's  been  fifteen  years  in  the  station 
service  of  our  road,  he  gets  one  of  these  for  himself; 
at  twenty-five  they  make  it  include  his  wife  and  de- 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       87 

pendent  members  of  his  family — which  is  quite  as  far 
as  the  law  allows." 

Blinks  laughs. 

"They're  generous  —  in  almost  every  way — except 
in  the  pay  envelope.  And  in  these  days  they're  actu- 
ally beginning  to  show  some  understanding  of  the  real 
difficulties  of  this  job."  There  is  an  instance  in  his 
mind.  He  gives  it  to  you.  For  the  station  agent  here 
at  Brier  Hill  still  recalls  the  fearful  lecture  he  got 
from  the  old  superintendents  of  his  divison  —  within 
a  month  after  he  was  made  station  agent  at  the  little 
town.  They  had  celebrated  the  centennial  of  the  fine 
old  town;  there  had  been  a  gay  night  parade  in  which 
all  the  merchants  of  the  village  were  represented.  Some 
of  them  had  sent  elaborate  floats  into  the  line  of  march, 
but  Blinks  had  been  content  to  have  his  two  boys  march, 
carrying  transparencies  that  did  honor  to  the  traffic 
facilities  of  the  Great  Midland.  The  transparencies 
had  cost  $6.75  and  Blinks  had  the  temerity  to  send  the 
bill  for  them  on  to  headquarters.  If  he  had  stolen  a 
train  and  given  all  his  friends  a  free  ride  upon  it  he 
hardly  could  have  caught  worse  censure. 

But  Blinks's  road  has  begun  to  see  a  great  light.  It 
has  begun  to  realize  Blinks  and  his  fellows  are  the 
tentacles  by  which  it  is  in  contact  with  its  territory. 
As  the  traffic  steadily  grows  heavier  it  has  relieved  him 
of  the  routine  of  telegraphic  train  orders  by  establish- 
ing a  block  tower  up  the  line  at  the  top  of  the  hill, 
where  regular  operators  make  a  sole  business  of  the 
management  of  the  trains  and  so  widen  the  margin  of 
safety  upon  that  division.  It  has  appointed  supervis- 


88  The  Railroad  Problem 

ing  agents  —  men  of  long  experience  in  depot  work, 
men  who  are  appointed  to  give  help  rather  than  criti- 
cism—  who  go  up  and  down  its  lines  giving  Blinks 
and  his  fellows  the  benefits  of  practical  suggestions. 

It  has  done  more  than  these  things.  Today  it  would 
not  censure  him  for  spending  $6.75  out  of  his  cash 
drawers  for  giving  it  a  representation  on  a  local  fete- 
day.  It  would  urge  him  to  spend  a  few  more  dollars 
and  make  a  really  good  showing.  It  is  giving  him  a 
little  more  help  in  the  office  and  insisting  that  he  mix 
more  with  the  citizens  of  the  town.  It  will  perhaps 
pay  his  dues  in  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  in  one 
or  two  of  the  local  clubs,  providing  the  dues  are  not 
too  high.  For  the  road  is  still  feeling  its  way. 

We  think  that  it  is  finding  a  path  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. It  has  long  maintained  an  expensive  staff  of 
traveling  solicitors  for  both  freight  and  passenger  traf- 
fic—  expensive  not  so  much  in  the  matter  of  salaries 
as  in  the  constant  flood  of  hotel  and  food  bills.  It 
has  ignored  Blinks  and  his  fellows  —  long-established 
tentacles  in  the  smaller  towns  —  and  their  possibilities. 
Now  it  is  turning  toward  them. 

Out  in  the  Middle  West  they  are  trying  still  an- 
other experiment.  Several  roads  have  begun  letting 
their  local  agents  pay  small  and  obvious  transit  claims 
right  out  of  their  cash  drawers,  instead  of  putting  them 
through  the  devious  and  time-taking  routine  of  the 
claim  departments.  Under  the  new  plan  the  agent 
first  pays  the  claim  —  if  it  does  not  exceed  twenty-five 
dollars,  or  thereabouts  —  and  the  claim  department 
checks  up  the  papers.  There  may  be  cases  where  the 


Unorganized  Labor — Station  Agent       89 

road  loses  by  such  methods,  but  they  are  hardly  to  be 
compared  with  the  friends  it  gains.  An  express  com- 
pany has  adopted  the  plan,  three  or  four  railroads  are 
giving  it  increasing  use.  The  idea  is  bound  to  spread 
and  grow.  And  not  the  least  of  its  good  effects  will 
be  the  increased  self-respect  of  the  agents  themselves. 
The  trust  that  the  road  places  in  them  gives  them  new 
trust  in  themselves. 

Blinks  has  a  little  way  of  talking  about  courtesy — 
which  in  effect  goes  something  after  the  same  fashion. 
He  generally  gives  the  little  talk  when  a  new  man 
comes  upon  his  small  staff. 

"The  best  exercise  for  the  human  body,"  he  tells 
the  man,  "  is  the  exercise  of  courtesy.  For  it  reflects 
not  only  upon  the  man  who  is  its  recipient,  but  in  un- 
seen fashion  upon  the  man  who  gives  it" 

After  all,  railroading  is  not  so  much  engineering, 
not  so  much  discipline,  not  so  much  organization,  not 
so  much  financing,  as  it  is  the  understanding  of  men. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    LABOR    PLIGHT   OF   THE    RAILROAD 

SOME  eighteen  per  cent  of  the  2,000,000  railroad 
employees  of  the  land,  receiving  a  little  over 
twenty-eight  per  cent  of  their  total  pay-roll,  are  affili- 
ated with  the  four  great  brotherhoods  —  of  the  engi- 
neers, the  firemen,  the  conductors,  and  the  trainmen. 
In  fairness  it  should  be  added  that  the  reason  why 
this  eighteen  per  cent  in  numerical  proportion,  receives 
twenty-eight  per  cent  in  financial  proportion,  is  that 
the  eighteen  per  cent  includes  the  larger  proportion 
of  the  skilled  labor  of  the  steel  highway.  Offhand, 
one  would  hardly  expect  a  track  laborer  to  receive  the 
same  wages  as  Freeman,  whose  skill  and  sense  of 
responsibility  entitles  him  to  run  the  limited. 

Yet  how  about  this  section-boss,  this  man  whom 
we  have  just  interviewed  as  he  stands  beside  his  job, 
the  man  who  enables  Freeman's  train  to  make  her  fast 
run  from  terminal  to  terminal  in  safety?  Remember 
that  in  summer  and  in  winter,  in  fair  weather  and  in 
foul,  this  man  must  also  measure  to  his  job.  He  must 
know  that  his  section  —  six  or  seven  or  eight  or  even  ten 
miles  —  is,  every  inch  of  it,  fit  for  the  pounding  of  the 
locomotive  at  high  speed.  You  do  not  have  to  preach 
eternal  vigilance  to  him.  It  long  since  became  part 
of  his  day's  work.  And  to  do  that  day's  work  he 

90 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  91 

must  work  long  hours  and  hard  —  as  you  have  already 
seen  —  must  be  denied  the  cheeriness  and  companion- 
ship of  men  of  his  kind.  He  frequently  must  locate 
his  family  and  himself  far  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  All  of  this,  and  please  remember  that  his 
average  pay  is  about  one-third  of  the  average  pay  of 
the  engineer.  It  is  plain  to  see  that  no  powerful  broth- 
erhood protects  him. 

If  space  permitted  we  could  consider  the  car-main- 
tainer.  His  is  an  equally  responsible  job.  Yet  he,  too, 
is  unorganized,  submerged,  underpaid.  His  plight  is 
worse  than  that  of  the  station  agent — and  we  have 
just  seen  how  Blinks  of  Brier  Hill  earns  his  pay.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  Blinks  is  rather  well  paid.  There 
are  more  men  at  country  depots  to  be  compared  with 
Fremont  —  men  who  give  the  best  of  their  energy  and 
diplomacy  and  all-round  ability  only  to  realize  that 
their  pay  envelope  is  an  appreciably  slimmer  thing  than 
those  of  the  well-dressed  trainmen  who  ride  the  pas- 
senger trains  up  and  down  the  line.  The  trainman 
gets  a  hundred  dollars  a  month  already — and  under 
the  Adamson  law  he  is  promised  more. 

This,  however,  may  prove  one  thing  quite  as  much 
as  another.  It  may  not  prove  that  the  trainman  is 
overpaid  as  much  as  it  proves  that  the  station  agent 
is  underpaid.  Personally,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  incline 
to  the  latter  theory.  I  have  learned  of  many  train- 
masters and  road  foremen  of  engines  who  have  far 
less  in  their  pay  envelopes  at  the  end  of  the  month 
than  the  men  who  are  under  their  supervision  and 
control.  And  there  is  not  much  theory  about  the 


92  The  Railroad  Problem 

difficulty  a  road  finds,  under  such  conditions,  to  "  pro- 
mote "  a  man  from  the  engineer's  cab  to  the  road  fore- 
man's or  the  trainmaster's  office.  In  other  days  this 
was  a  natural  step  upward,  in  pay  and  in  authority. 
Today  there  is  no  advance  in  pay  and  the  men  in 
the  cab  see  only  authority  and  responsibility  and 
worry  in  such  a  job  —  with  no  wage  increase  to 
justify  it. 

Down  in  the  Southwest  this  situation  is  true  even 
of  division  superintendents  —  men  of  long  training,  real 
executive  ability,  and  understanding  who  are  actually 
paid  less  month  by  month  than  the  well-protected  engi- 
neers and  conductors  of  their  divisions.  There  is  no 
brotherhood  among  station  agents,  none  among  the 
operating  officers  of  the  railroads  of  America.  And 
yet  for  loyalty  and  ability,  taken  man  for  man,  division 
for  division,  and  road  for  road,  there  are  no  finer  or 
more  intelligent  workers  in  all  of  industrial  America. 
Still  the  fact  remains  that  they  are  not  well-paid 
workers. 

When  is  a  man  well  paid? 

According  to  the  public  prints,  Charlie  Chaplin,  that 
amusing  young  clown  of  the  movies,  receives  from  a 
quarter  to  half  a  million  dollars  a  year — according 
to  the  ability  of  his  most  recent  press  agent.  I  happen 
to  know  that  a  certain  missionary  bishop  down  in  Okla- 
homa receives  as  his  compensation  $1,200  a  year — 
although  he  never  is  quite  certain  of  his  salary.  With 
due  respect  to  the  comedian  of  the  screen-drama,  does 
anyone  imagine  that  his  influence  in  the  upbuilding  of 
the  new  America  is  to  be  compared  for  a  moment  to 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  93 

that  of  the  shepherd  of  the  feeble  flocks  down  in  the 
Southwest? 

Your  economist  will  tell  you,  and  use  excellent  argu- 
ments in  support  of  the  telling,  that  the  wage  outgo 
of  the  land  is  fixed,  in  definite  proportion  to  its  wealth. 
Granting  then  that  this  is  so  —  one  thinks  twice  before 
he  runs  amuck  of  trained  economists  —  is  it  still  fair 
to  infer  that  the  track  foreman  or  the  car-maintainer 
or  the  station  agent  is  amply  paid?  And  is  it  equally 
fair  to  infer  that  the  pay  of  these  three  classes  of  rail- 
road employees,  so  typical  of  unorganized  transpor- 
tation labor,  could  be  raised  by  lowering  the  pay  of 
organized  employees  without  leaving  these  organized 
employees  actually  underpaid?  And  what  assurance 
has  the  average  man,  the  man  in  the  street,  that  any  re- 
duction in  the  pay  of  the  engineers,  the  conductors,  the 
firemen,  and  the  trainmen  —  if  such  a  miracle  actually 
be  brought  to  pass  —  would  result  in  a  corresponding 
increase  in  the  pay  of  the  other  eighty-two  per  cent 
of  the  labor  of  the  railroad? 

These  are  questions  that  must  be  answered  sooner 
or  later.  In  the  present  situation  it  looks  as  if  they 
would  have  to  be  answered  sooner  rather  than  later. 
With  them  come  others :  Assuming  still  that  our  econ- 
omist with  his  belief  that  the  wage  outgo  of  the  entire 
nation  is  correct,  is  it  not  possible  that  the  railroad 
as  an  institution  is  not  getting  its  fair  proportion  of 
the  national  total?  I  have  just  shown  you  how  eigh- 
teen per  cent  of  the  railroad's  employees  receives 
twenty-eight  per  cent  of  their  pay-roll.  It  would  be 
equally  interesting  to  know  the  percentage  of  national 


94  The  Railroad  Problem 

wage  which  goes  to  all  the  employees  of  all  the 
railroads. 

I  cannot  but  feel  when  I  realize  the  great  annual 
total  of  wages  which  are  being  paid  in  the  automobile 
and  the  war-munitions  industries,  to  make  striking  in- 
stances, that  the  railroads  are  by  no  means  receiving 
their  fair  share  of  the  national  wage  account.  Even  the 
salaries  paid  to  railroad  executives,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  a  comparatively  small  group  of  men  at 
the  very  top  of  some  of  the  largest  properties,  are  not 
generous.  There  has  been  much  misstatement  about 
these  salaries.  Because  of  these  misstatements  it  is 
unfortunate,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  railroads  have 
not  followed  a  policy  of  publishing  their  entire  pay- 
rolls—  from  the  president  down  to  office  boy. 

But  the  fact  remains  —  a  fact  that  may  easily  be 
verified  by  consulting  the  records  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  —  that  railroad  salaries  are  not 
high,  as  compared  with  other  lines  of  industry  in 
America.  That  is  one  reason  why  the  business  has  so 
few  allurements  to  the  educated  young  men  —  the  com- 
ing engineers  of  America.  They  come  trooping  out  of 
the  high  schools,  the  technical  schools,  the  colleges,  and 
the  universities  of  our  land  and  struggle  to  find  their 
way  into  the  electrical  workshops,  the  mines,  the  steel- 
making  industry,  the  automobile  shops,  the  telephone, 
even  to  the  new,  scientific,  highly  developed  forms  of 
agriculture.  Few  of  them  find  their  way  to  the  rail- 
road. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  alarming  symptoms  of  the 
great  sick  man  of  American  business  —  his  apparent 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  95 

utter  inability  to  draw  fresh,  red  blood  to  his  veins.1  A 
few  of  the  roads  —  a  very  few  indeed  —  have  made 
distinct  efforts  to  build  up  a  personnel  for  future  years 
by  intelligent  educational  means.  The  Southern  Pacific 
and  the  Union  Pacific  have  made  interesting  studies 
and  permanent  efforts  along  these  lines.  But  most  of 
the  railroads  realize  that  it  is  the  wage  question  —  the 
long,  hard  road  to  a  decent  pay  envelope  in  their  serv- 
ice, as  compared  with  the  much  shorter  pathways  in 
other  lines  of  American  industry — that  is  their  chief 
obstacle  in  this  phase  of  their  railroad  problem. 

It  has  been  suggested,  and  with  wisdom,  that  the 
railroad  should  begin  to  make  a  more  careful  study 
and  analysis  of  its  entire  labor  situation  than  it  has  ever 


1 "  The  bitter  fight  now  raging  as  to  the  content  and  enforcement  of 
the  Adamson  Act  should  not  make  us  lose  sight  of  certain  things  which 
are  more  fundamental  in  railroading  than  either  wages  or  hours. 
The  transportation  service  of  this  country  has  been  the  best  in  the 
world,  partly  because  it  gave  us  a  free  field  for  able  and  ambitious 
men.  Rising  from  the  commonest  sort  of  day  labor,  these  executives 
command  the  respect  and  obedience  of  the  rank  and  file,  but  sometimes 
forget  to  cooperate.  That  is  the  root  cause  of  the  present-day  troubles. 
It  is  natural  that  a  corporation  president  should  stand  for  the  interests 
of  the  company,  but  if  the  men  are  to  be  bound  up  heart  and  soul  in 
loyalty  to  the  work,  then  their  interests  are,  and  must  be,  part  of  the 
interests  of  the  company.  A  railroad  cannot  be  run  exclusively  by 
presidents,  superintendents,  and  managers;  there  must  be  engineers 
and  firemen  of  training  and  long  experience.  As  a  practical  matter, 
this  means  that  these  occupations  must  hold  many  capable  men  during 
their  entire  working  lives.  In  a  country  of  free  institutions  this  situ- 
ation cannot  be  held  down  by  autocratic  rule.  If  the  men  have  no 
say  in  the  company,  they  will  try  to  get  one  in  the  union.  The  great 
mistake  of  American  railroad  presidents  during  the  last  thirty  years 
has  been  to  force  this  growth  of  factionalism,  to  make  it  plain  that  the 
union  was  the  means  by  which  the  men  could  get  ahead.  The  railroad 
brotherhoods  secured  one  concession  after  another  in  hours,  wages, 


96  The  Railroad  Problem 

before  attempted.  Today  it  is  giving  careful,  scientific, 
detailed  attention  to  every  other  phase  of  its  great 
problems.  One  road  today  has  twenty-seven  scientific 
observers  —  well  trained  and  schooled  to  their  work — • 
making  a  careful  survey  of  its  territory,  with  a  view 
to  developing  its  largest  traffic  possibilities.  And  some 
day  a  railroad  is  to  begin  making  an  audit  of  its  labor 
—  to  discover  for  itself  in  exact  fact  and  figures,  the 
cost  of  living  for  a  workman  in  Richmond  or  South 
Bend  or  Butte  or  San  Bernardino.  Upon  that  it  will 
begin  to  plat  its  minimum  wage-increase. 

Suppose  the  railroad  was  to  begin  with  this  abso- 
lute cost  of  living  as  a  foundation  factor.  It  would 
quickly  add  to  it  the  hazard  of  the  particular  form  of 


and  operating  rules,  concessions  which  the  nonunion  men  could  not  get. 
The  limits  of  this  method  have  about  been  reached.  Cannot  railroad 
executives  save  the  future  by  definitely  abandoning  this  policy  of 
quarrel  and  drift,  by  making  themselves  the  true  leaders  of  all  their 
men?  We  think  they  can.  They  have  had  too  much  of  a  caste  point 
of  view  and  have  been  too  much  absorbed  in  other  things.  It  is  time 
to  change.  The  general  alternatives  have  been  well  stated  by  Edward 
A.  Filene,  a  leader  of  the  new  mercantile  New  England,  in  these  words: 

"  '  If  American  employers  are  farsighted  they  will  begin  to  put  as 
much  hard  thinking  into  the  problem  of  men  as  they  have  put  into  the 
problem  of  machinery,  for,  finally,  that  contentment  of  labor  which  is 
based  upon  a  welfare  that  springs  from  justice  and  frank  dealing  is 
the  only  soil  from  which  permanently  prosperous  business  can  spring. 

" '  All  of  the  initiative  in  solving  the  labor  problem  must  not  in  the 
future  come  from  the  employees.  If  the  employers  of  America  do  not 
solve  the  labor  problems  by  business  statesmanship,  the  employees  of 
America  will  determine  the  outcome  by  force;  and  what  labor  cannot 
get  in  the  future  by  the  physical  force  of  strikes,  it  may  be  able  to  get 
through  the  legal  force  of  legislation  and  the  income-taxing  power.' 

"  If  our  railroad  employers,  among  others,  will  learn  and  apply  the 
wisdom  expressed  in  this  excerpt,  all  will  yet  be  well."  —  Collier's 
Weekly. 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  97 

labor  in  which  its  employee  was  engaged  expressed  in 
dollars  and  cents  —  a  factor  easily  figured  out  by  any 
insurance  actuary.  To  this  again  would  be  added  a 
certain  definite  sum  which  might  best  be  expressed,  per- 
haps, as  the  employee's  profit  from  his  work;  a  sum 
which,  in  ordinary  cases  at  least,  would  or  should  repre- 
sent the  railroad's  steady  contribution  to  his  savings- 
bank  account.  To  these  three  fundamental  factors 
there  would  probably  have  to  be  added  a  fourth  —  the 
bonus  which  the  railroad  was  compelled  to  offer  in 
a  competitive  labor  market  for  either  a  man  or  a  type 
of  men  which  it  felt  that  it  very  much  needed  in  its 
service.  Only  upon  some  such  definite  basis  as  this 
can  a  railroad's  pay-roll  ever  be  made  scientific  and 
economic  —  and  therefore  permanent. 

An  instant  ago  and  I  was  speaking  of  bonuses.  The 
very  word  had,  until  recently,  a  strange  sound  in 
railroad  ears.  The  best  section  foreman  on  a  line  may 
receive  a  cash  prize  for  his  well-maintained  stretch  of 
track;  I  should  like  to  hear  of  a  station  agent  like  Blinks 
who  knows  that  his  well-planned  and  persistent  effort  to 
build  up  the  freight  and  passenger  business  at  his  station, 
is  to  be  rewarded  by  a  definite  contribution  from  the 
pay-chest  of  the  railroad  which  employs  him.  Up  to 
very  recently  there  apparently  has  not  been  a  single  rail- 
road which  has  taken  up  this  question  of  bonus  payments 
for  extra  services  given.  To  the  abounding  credit  of 
the  Atchison,  Topeka,  and  Santa  Fe  Railway  and  its 
president,  Edward  Payson  Ripley,  let  it  be  said  that 
they  have  just  agreed  to  pay  the  greater  proportion 
of  their  employees  receiving  less  than  $2,000  a  year 


98  The  Railroad  Problem 

a  bonus  of  ten  per  cent  of  the  year's  salary  for  1916  — 
a  payment  amounting  all  told  to  $2,750,000.  The  em- 
ployees so  benefited  must  have  been  employed  by  the 
Santa  Fe  for  at  least  two  years  and  they  must  not  be 
what  is  called  "  contract  labor."  By  that  the  railroad 
means  chiefly  the  men  of  the  four  great  brotherhoods 
whose  services  are  protected  by  very  exact  and  definite 
agreements  or  contracts.  The  men  of  the  brother- 
hoods are  hardly  in  a  position  to  expect  or  to  demand 
a  bonus  of  any  sort.  And  it  also  is  worthy  of  record 
that  practically  every  union  man,  big  or  little,  has 
placed  himself  on  record  against  bonus  plans  of  every 
sort. 

I  hope  that  the  example  of  the  Santa  Fe  is  to  be 
followed  by  the  other  railroads  of  the  country.1  It  is 
stimulating  and  encouraging;  it  shows  that  the  big 
sick  man  of  American  business  apparently  is  not  be- 
yond hope  of  recovery.  For,  in  my  own  mind,  the 
bonus  system  is,  beyond  a  doubt,  the  eventual  solution 
of  the  whole  involved  question  of  pay  as  it  exists  today 


1  Already  it  has  been  followed  by  several  other  railroad  and  express 
systems  —  conspicuous  among  these,  the  Southern  Pacific,  the  Union 
Pacific,  the  Erie,  Wells  Fargo  &  Co.  Express,  and  the  American 
Express  Company.  The  Union  Pacific's  plan,  embracing  an  expenditure 
of  approximately  $2,500,000  in  bonus  payments,  differs  from  those  of 
the  other  railroads,  except  the  Erie,  in  that  it  does  not  make  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  men  who  belong  to  the  brotherhoods  or  other  forms 
of  union  labor,  and  those  who  are  not  "  contract  labor."  The  Union 
Pacific's  plan  also  embraces  a  scheme  of  group  insurance,  in  the  benefits 
of  which  its  employes  participate  without  cost  to  themselves.  Insurance 
plans,  of  one  sort  or  another,  have  recently  become  popular,  and  are 
being  recognized  as  a  logical  outgrowth  of  the  pension  systems  which 
have  long  since  become  part  of  the  fiber  and  structure  of  the  older 
and  more  conservative  of  our  railroad  and  express  companies. 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  99 

and  will  continue  to  exist  in  the  minds  of  both  em- 
ployer and  employee.  Our  progressive  and  healthy 
forms  of  big  industry  of  the  United  States  have  long 
since  come  to  this  bonus  plan  of  paying  their  employees. 
The  advances  made  by  the  steel  companies  and  other 
forms  of  manufacturing  enterprise,  by  great  mer- 
chandising concerns,  both  wholesale  and  retail,  and  by 
many  of  the  public  utility  companies,  including  certain 
traction  systems,  are  fairly  well  known.  It  is  a  step 
that,  when  once  taken,  is  never  retraced.  The  bonus 
may  be  paid  in  various  ways  -*-  in  cash  or  in  the  oppor- 
tunity to  subscribe  either  at  par  or  at  a  preferred  figure, 
to  the  company's  stock  or  bonds.  But  there  is  little 
variation  as  to  the  results.  And  the  workmen  who 
benefit  directly  by  these  bonus  plans  become  and  remain 
quite  as  enthusiastic  over  them  as  the  men  who  employ 
them  and  whose  benefit,  of  necessity,  is  indirect. 

In  this  connection  some  studies  made  recently  by 
Harrington  Emerson,  the  distinguished  efficiency 
engineer,  are  of  particular  interest.  Mr.  Emerson, 
while  attached  to  the  president's  office  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad,  has  had  opportunity  to  study  the 
railroad  situation  at  close  range  and  in  a  very  practical 
way.  He  has  placed  his  carefully  developed  theories 
in  regard  to  the  man  in  the  shop  and  his  wage  into  a 
study  of  the  railroader  and  his  pay-envelope.  He  has 
gone  back  into  transportation  history  and  found  that 
at  first  employes  were  paid  by  the  day.  But  long 
hours  either  on  the  road  or  waiting  on  passing  sidings 
worked  great  hardships  to  them.  As  a  more  or  less 


100  The  Railroad  Problem 

direct  consequence  the  men  in  train  service  formed 
unions  and  succeeded  in  establishing  the  peculiar  com- 
bination of  pay  upon  the  mile  and  the  hour  basis  — 
which  has  obtained  ever  since  in  general  railroad  prac- 
tice. If  a  train  or  a  locomotive  man  was  called  for 
duty,  even  if  he  never  left  the  station,  he  received  a  full 
day's  pay.  This,  in  Mr.  Emerson's  opinion  and  in  the 
opinion  of  a  good  many  others  who  have  studied  the 
situation,  was  as  it  should  be  and  the  principle  should 
have  been  adhered  to.  But  to  it  was  tacked  the  piece 
rate  of  the  mile.  If  a  train  or  locomotive  man  made 
one  hundred  miles  it  was  considered  a  day's  work, 
even  if  made  in  two  hours.  In  this  way  the  piece-rate 
principle  became  firmly  established  alongside  of  the 
hourly  basis. 

"What  was  the  result  on  railroad  operation  and 
costs?"  asks  Mr.  Emerson  and  then  proceeds  to 
answer  his  own  question.  He  calls  attention  to  the 
cars  weighing  120,000  pounds  and  having  axle-loads 
of  50,000  pounds  that  are  being  run  upon  our  railroads 
today  and  expresses  his  belief  that  because  in  our 
established  methods  of  railroad  accounting,  operating 
costs  include  train  men's  wages,  but  not  interest  on 
capital  invested  in  locomotives,  cars,  trains  and  ter- 
minals; railroad  managers,  driven  by  the  need  to  make 
a  showing  long  since  began  to  plan  more  revenue  tons 
per  train-mile  in  order  to  keep  down  or  lessen  train- 
crew  wage-costs  per  ton-mile.  This  was  very  well 
as  long  as  it  led  to  better-filled  cars  and  trains,  but  the 
plan  quickly  expanded  into  heavier  locomotives  and 
heavier  cars  which  necessitated  heavier  rails,  more  ties, 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  101 

tie-plates,  stronger  bridges,  reduced  grades,  and  a 
realignment  until  all  that  was  gained  in  tonnage-mile 
costs  was  lost  in  increased  obsolescence,  unremunerative 
betterment,  and  other  fixed  charges.  Even  as  good 
a  railroader  as  Mr.  Harriman  was  once  led  to  regret 
that  railroads  were  not  built  upon  a  six-foot  gauge 
instead  of  the  long-established  one  of  four  feet  eight 
and  one-half  inches,  because  he  felt  that  this  would 
enable  him  still  further  to  increase  train  load  in 
proportion  to  train  crew. 

A  good  many  railroaders  have  said  that  we  have 
reached  and  long  since  passed  the  point  of  efficiency 
by  increasing  our  standard  of  car  and  train  sizes.  Mr. 
Emerson  is  not  new  in  that  deduction.  But  he  puts 
the  case  so  clearly  in  regard  to  the  confusing  double 
basis  in  the  pay  of  the  trainmen  —  the  vexed  point  that 
is  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  as 
this  book  is  being  completed,  because  the  Adamson 
so-called  eight-hour  day  omitted  the  mileage  factor,  to 
the  eternal  annoyance  of  those  same  trainmen  —  that 
I  cannot  forbear  quoting  his  exact  words: 

Piece  rates  to  trainmen  should  be  abolished.  The  work  of 
trainmen  should  be  classified.  There  should  be  short  hours  and 
correspondingly  high  pay  for  men  working  under  great  strain. 
There  should  be  heavy  penalties  attached  for  overtime,  although 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  man  who  puts  in  the  overtime  should 
receive  the  penalty.  Society  wants  him  to  protest  against  over- 
time, because  it  may  be  both  dangerous  to  the  public  and 
detrimental  to  the  worker.  The  worker  should  not  be  bribed 
to  encourage  it. 

It  is  evident  that  pay  by  the  hour  with  penalties  for  overtime 
would  encourage  lighter  and  faster  trains.  Lighter  and  faster 


102  The  Railroad  Problem 

trains  would  increase  the  roads'  capacity  as  well  as  car  and 
locomotive  mileage.  Capital  expenses  would  drop.  The  savings 
made  would  be  available  to  increase  wages  and  to  pay  higher 
bills  for  material  and  to  pay  better  dividends. 

Beyond  this  there  is  little  more  to  be  said  —  at  least 
pending  the  decision  of  the  highest  court  in  the  land. 
But  no  matter  how  the  Supreme  Court  may  find  in  this 
vexatious  matter,  the  fact  remains  that  the  union  man 
in  railroad  employ  will  continue  to  be  paid  upon  this 
complicated  and  unfit  double  method  of  reckoning 
—  clumsy,  totally  inadequate  (built  up  through  the 
years  by  men  who  preferred  compromise)  and  com- 
plicate an  intelligent  and  definite  solution  of  a  real 
problem. 

Some  day,  some  railroader  is  going  to  solve  the 
question;  and,  in  my  own  humble  opinion,  a  genuine 
solution,  worked  from  the  human  as  well  as  the  purely 
economic  angle  is  going  to  rank  with  the  bonus  and 
other  indications  of  an  advanced  interest  on  the  part 
of  railroad  executives  in  the  men  as  a  step  toward  a 
betterment  of  the  relations  between  them. 

In  my  opinion  such  steps  as  these  that  I  have  Just 
outlined  not  only  would  go  far  toward  solving  the 
frequent  "crises"  that  arise  between  the  railroads  and 
their  employees,  but  would  tend  greatly  to  prevent 
the  depreciation  of  the  human  equipment  of  the  road. 
Remember  that  this  labor  problem  is  one  which  presses 
hard  not  only  upon  the  body  politic,  but  upon  the  whole 
human  structure  of  our  country.  Its  solution,  as  well 


Labor  Plight  of  the  Railroad  103 

as  the  solution  of  the  physical  question,  must  be  not 
only  immediate,  but  economic  and  financial. 

All  this  is  bound  to  result  soon  in  a  very  great  in- 
crease in  the  railroad's  pay-roll.  It  is  an  added  cost 
that  must  be  met  before  the  railroad  can  come  into  its 
own  once  again.  It  is  quickly  obvious  that  the  great 
pay-roll  must  be  equalized,  that  in  these  days  of  steadily 
mounting  cost  of  living,  its  unorganized  labor — its 
trackmen,  its  carmen,  its  shopmen,  its  clerks,  its  sta- 
tion agents  —  must  be  given  a  fairer  chance  in  the 
division  of  its  wages.  It  needs  to  pay  better  salaries 
to  its  minor  officers,  and  it  is  today  handicapped  for 
lack  of  these. 

It  is  obvious  also  that  it  is  going  to  be  extremely 
difficult,  to  say  the  least,  for  the  railroad  to  reduce  the 
wages  of  its  organized  labor.  Put  this  statement  to 
the  ones  that  have  gone  before  and  you  can  quickly 
see  the  need  for  very  great  increases  in  the  railroad's 
pay-roll  in  the  immediate  future.  It  is  going  to  be  com- 
pelled to  seek  a  larger  share  in  that  great  portion  of 
the  nation's  outgo  that  goes  to  pay  for  its  labor  of 
every  sort.  It  can  no  longer  postpone  the  pressing 
demands  of  its  unorganized  workers. 

The  failure  to  increase  their  portion  of  the  pay-roll, 
with  its  consequent  tendency  toward  the  depreciation,  if 
you  please,  of  much  of  the  human  element  in  the  opera- 
tion of  the  railroad,  may  yet  prove  to  be  a  problem, 
larger  and  more  serious  than  the  failure  not  alone 
to  increase  but  to  prevent  the  physical  depreciation  of 
the  railroad. 

This  physical  question  —  the  financial  plight  of  the 


104  The  Railroad  Problem 

railroad,  its  great  and  growing  depreciation  account, 
the  consequent  deterioration  of  its  lines,  particularly 
its  branch  lines  —  we  already  have  discussed.  To  that 
plight  now  add  the  labor  plight.  No  wonder  that  the 
great  man  of  American  business  lies  sick  upon  his  bed. 
Already  we  have  learned  that  from  a  purely  material 
po'nt  of  view,  the  railroad  is  nine  years  back  of  1917 
instead  of  nine  years  ahead  of  this  date.  Its  involved, 
delicate,  unsettled  labor  problem  shows  that  nine  years 
is  a  small  lapse  indeed  between  the  tardiness  of  its 
labor  relations,  together  with  the  real  understanding 
of  its  human  problem,  and  the  general  understanding 
of  labor  and  social  conditions  in  other  lines  of  Ameri- 
can industry. 

Yet  it  is  not  too  late  to  mend.  And  just  to  show 
that  this  is  possible,  that  it  is  worth  while  bringing 
the  sick  man  of  American  business  back  to  health  again, 
just  for  the  opportunities  of  development  that  stand 
before  him,  I  am  going  to  take  your  time  to  show 
you  a  few  of  the  larger  possibilities  of  the  railroads 
of  tne  United  States. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  OPPORTUNITY  OF  THE  RAILROAD 

TN  the  past  decade  the  United  States  has  progressed 
mightily.  Have  the  railroads  of  the  land  made 
equal  progress?  The  past  decade  of  American  prog- 
ress will,  in  all  probability,  pale  before  the  coming  ot 
the  next  —  particularly  if  we  are  cool-headed  and  smart- 
headed  enough  to  take  critical  reckoning  of  our  weak- 
nesses and  to  use  such  a  reckoning  as  a  stepping-stone 
toward  supplementing  our  great  inherent  and  poten- 
tial strength.  Will  the  railroad  during  the  coming 
decade  move  forward  to  its  opportunity?  And  what 
is  the  opportunity  of  the  railroad? 

These  are  pertinent  questions.  They  come  with 
added  force  upon  a  statement  of  the  present  plight  of 
our  overland  carriers  and  before  one  comes  to  con- 
sider the  measures  of  immediate  relief  that  must  be 
granted  them.  They  must  be  considered  too  —  briefly, 
but  with  a  due  appreciation  of  their  importance.  The 
railroaders  of  vision  —  and  I  have  never  believed  that 
there  was  a  really  big  railroader  who  lacked  vision  — 
today  are  thinking  of  them. 

For  a  beginning  take  the  possibility  of  the  applica- 
tion of  electricity  as  a  motive  power  in  the  operation 
of  the  railroad.  Our  overland  carriers  have  only  be- 

105 


106  The  Railroad  Problem 

gun  to  sound  the  vast  possibilities  of  this  great  agent 
of  energy.  To  many  of  the  roads,  its  present  attain- 
ments both  in  Europe  and  in  America  are  still,  in  large 
measure,  a  closed  book.  They  have  little  realization 
of  what  was  accomplished  in  suburban  electrification 
in  Paris  or  in  Berlin  well  before  the  beginning  of  the 
war;  hardly  greater  realization  of  the  marvels  wrought 
in  the  suburban  zones  of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Port- 
land, and  San  Francisco.  And  the  tremendous  accom- 
plishment of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul 
Railway  in  transforming  nearly  500  miles  of  its  main 
line  over  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  is  still  so 
new  and  so  dazzling  as  to  have  given  railroad  managers 
in  other  sections  of  the  land  little  opportunity  to  con- 
sider its  opportunities  as  applied  to  their  own  proper- 
ties. 

Within  the  past  few  years  the  folk  of  the  East  have 
seen  several  important  terminals  —  terminals  really 
vast  in  their  proportions  and  their  accommodations  — 
developed  in  the  great  cities  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 
There  have  been  important  passenger  stations  erected 
in  other  parts  of  the  land  —  the  new  Union  Station 
in  Kansas  City,  the  Union  Station  at  Minneapolis,  and 
the  North  Western  Terminal  at  Chicago  coming  first 
to  mind  among  these.  But  the  passenger  terminal  de- 
velopments along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  have  differed 
from  those  of  the  Middle  West  chiefly  in  the  fact 
that  into  their  planning  and  construction  has  been  in- 
terwoven the  use  of  electricity  as  a  motive  power  for 
the  trains  which  are  to  use  them.  Practically  every 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  107 

one  of  these  is  so  designed  as  to  make  its  operation  by 
steam  power  impossible. 

The  ambitious  good  taste  of  many  of  our  cities 
growing  into  a  real  metropolitanism  has  been  gratified 
in  this  decade  of  our  national  progress  by  the  erection 
of  monumental  passenger  stations.  These  structures 
invariably  are  more  than  merely  creditable  —  they  are 
impressive,  majestic,  beautiful.  Yet  the  big  railroaders 
do  not  always  see  them  in  this  light.  They  find  them- 
selves, by  one  means  or  another,  compelled  to  gratify 
local  civic  pride  by  the  expenditure  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands and  even  millions  of  dollars  more  than  it  would 
cost  to  build  a  plain,  efficient  terminal,  large  enough 
to  accommodate  the  traffic  of  both  today  and  tomor- 
row. The  extra  expenditure  goes  to  produce  a  granite 
palace,  generally  ornate  and  sometimes  extravagant  to 
the  last  degree. 

Yet  in  all  this  widespread  development  of  the  Ameri- 
can terminal,  one  at  least  has  been  evolved  which  is 
not  merely  monumental,  but  an  economic  solution  of 
its  own  great  cost.  I  refer  to  the  new  Grand  Central 
Terminal  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

You  may  recall  the  old  Grand  Central  Station.  It 
was  no  mean  terminal.  Commodore  Vanderbilt  built 
it  himself  soon  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  The 
passenger  business  of  the  railroads  of  the  land  was 
then  beginning  to  be  a  considerable  thing.  Americans 
were  gaining  the  travel  habit.  The  genus  commuter 
had  been  born.  The  first  of  the  railroad  Vanderbilts 
saw  all  these  things.  And,  because  he  had  the  fine 
gift  of  vision,  he  turned  his  far-seeing  toward  action. 


108  The  Railroad  Problem 

On  Forty-second  Street  —  then  a  struggling  crossroad 
at  the  back  of  New  York — he  erected  the  greatest 
railroad  terminal  in  the  world.  It  was  indeed  a  giant 
structure,  and  the  biggest  of  our  American  towns  had, 
in  its  Grand  Central  depot,  a  toy  over  which  it  might 
brag  for  many  and  many  a  day. 

New  York  was  in  genuine  ecstasy  about  it.  Its 
ornate  and  graceful  train  shed  spanned  thirteen  tracks, 
and  even  if  our  fathers  did  wonder  where  all  the  cars 
could  come  from  to  fill  so  spacious  an  apartment  they 
had  to  marvel  at  its  beauty.  And  beyond  this  crea- 
tion of  the  artist  was  the  creation  of  the  engineer  — 
the  huge  switching  yard,  black  and  interlaced  with  steel 
tracks.  It  was  a  mightily  congested  railroad  yard; 
upon  its  tight-set  edges  the  growing  city  pressed.  Sky- 
scrapers sprang  up  roundabout  and  looked  down  upon 
the  cars  and  locomotives.  The  value  of  that  land, 
given  as  a  switching  yard  for  a  passenger  terminal, 
eventually  was  reckoned  close  to  $100,000,000.  And 
the  yard  itself  became  a  black  barrier  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  heart  of  metropolitan  New  York. 

In  forty  years  from  the  day  it  was  opened,  the  last 
vestige  of  the  Grand  Central  depot,  a  building  which, 
to  a  considerable  portion  of  the  population  of  this  land, 
had  been  second  in  fame  only  to  the  Capitol  at  Wash- 
ington, was  gone.  Workmen  had  torn  it  stone  from 
stone  and  brick  from  brick  and  carted  it  off  as  waste 
to  scrap  yards.  The  majesty  of  that  lovely  vaulted 
train  shed  had  been  reduced  to  a  pile  of  rusty  and 
useless  iron.  It  had  been  outgrown  and  discarded. 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  109 

In  fact  within  a  dozen  years  after  its  christening  the 
wonderful  depot  was  overtaxed.  Even  Vanderbilt's 
vision  could  not  grasp  the  growth  that  was  coming, 
not  only  to  New  York,  but  to  the  great  territory  his 
railroads  served.  In  a  dozen  years  workmen  were 
clearing  a  broad  space  to  the  east  of  the  main  struc- 
ture for  an  annex  train  shed  of  a  half-dozen  tracks, 
to  relieve  the  pressure  upon  the  original  station.  An- 
other twelve  years  and  the  laborers  were  again  upon  the 
Grand  Central,  this  time  adding  stories  to  the  original 
structure  and  trying  to  simplify  its  operation  by  new 
baggage  and  waiting  rooms.  Within  the  third  dozen 
years  the  workmen  were  busy  with  air  drill  and  steam 
shovel  digging  the  great  hole  in  the  rock  that  was  the 
first  notice  to  the  old  Grand  Central  that  its  short 
lease  of  busy  life  was  ending.  And  in  the  fortieth 
year  of  its  life  they  were  tearing  down  the  old  station  — 
old  within  the  span  of  two  generations  —  old  only  be- 
cause it  had  been  outgrown. 

The  problem  of  the  new  Grand  Central  was  both 
engineering  and  architectural.  It  is  the  engineering 
side  of  the  problem  which  interests  us  here  and  now. 
It  was  that  side  which  it  was  necessary  to  solve  first. 
To  solve  it  meant  that  the  passenger  traffic  into  New 
York  from  the  north  and  east  for  another  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years  must  be  discounted  —  not  an  easy  mat- 
ter when  in  the  case  of  a  single  famous  trunk-line  rail- 
road it  has  been  found  that  the  passenger  traffic  has 
doubled  each  ten  years  for  the  past  three  decades. 
When  the  statisticians  put  down  their  pencils  the  engi- 


110  The  Railroad  Problem 

neers  whistled.  To  fashion  a  station  for  the  traffic 
of  1960,  even  for  that  of  1935,  meant  such  a  passen- 
ger station  as  no  railroad  head,  no  engineer,  no  archi- 
tect had  ever  before  dreamed  of  building.  At  a  low 
estimate,  it  meant  that  there  would  have  to  be  some 
forty  or  fifty  stub-tracks  in  the  train  shed.  In  the 
great  train  shed  of  the  Union  Station  of  St.  Louis, 
there  are  thirty-two  of  these  stub-tracks  and  the  span 
of  that  shed  is  606  feet.  That  would  have  meant  in 
the  case  of  the  new  Grand  Central  a  train  house  with 
a  width  of  nearly  a  thousand  feet.  The  engineers  shook 
their  heads.  They  knew  their  limitations  —  with  the 
Grand  Central  hedged  in  by  the  most  expensive  real 
estate  in  the  city  of  New  York.  To  buy  any  large 
quantity  of  adjoining  land  for  the  new  station  was 
quite  out  of  the  question. 

Fortunately  there  was  a  way  out.  There  generally 
is.  The  electric  locomotive  had  begun  to  come  into  its 
own.  For  the  operation  of  this  station,  including  the 
congested  four-track  tunnel  under  Park  Avenue,  from 
the  very  throat  of  the  train-shed  yard  up  to  Harlem, 
four  miles  distant,  it  represented  an  almost  ideal  form 
of  traction,  largely  because  of  its  cleanliness  and  free- 
dom from  smoke.  For  the  engineers  who  were  giving 
their  wits  to  the  planning  of  a  new  terminal  it  was 
the  solution  of  their  hardest  problem. 

They  would  cut  their  train  shed  of  fifty  tracks  about 
in  half — and  then  place  one  of  these  halves  directly 
above  the  other.  This  would  make  a  fairly  logical 
division  between  the  through  and  the  suburban  traffic 
of  the  terminal.  In  that  way  the  new  Grand  Central 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  111 

was  planned.  And  that  one  thing  represented  its  first 
important  demarkation  from  the  other  great  passenger 
stations  of  the  land.  It  also  is  the  thing  that  pointed 
the  way  to  the  most  wonderful  development  of  Amer- 
ica's most  wonderful  terminal,  the  thing  that  is  in- 
finitely greater  than  the  station  itself. 

Recall  once  again,  if  you  will,  that  dirty  smoke-filled 
yard  at  the  portals  of  the  old-station.  It  was  rather 
an  impressive  place;  by  night,  with  its  flashing  signals 
of  red  and  green  and  yellow,  its  glare  of  dominant 
headlights  and  the  constant  unspoken  orders  of  swing- 
ing lamps;  by  day,  a  seeming  chaos  of  locomotives  and 
of  cars,  turning  this  way  or  that,  slipping  into  the  dark 
cool  train  shed  under  grinding  brakes,  or  else  starting 
from  that  giant  cavern  with  gathering  speed,  to  roll 
halfway  across  the  continent  before  the  final  halt.  To 
the  layman  it  was  fascinating,  because  he  knew  that 
the  chaos  was  really  ordered,  on  a  scientific  and  tremen- 
dous scale,  that  the  alert  little  man  who  stood  at  the 
levers  of  the  inconspicuous  tower  mid-yard,  was  the 
clear-minded  human  who  was  directing  the  working  of 
a  great  terminal  by  the  working  of  his  brain.  But  to 
the  thinking  railroader  that  railroad  yard,  like  every 
railroad  yard  in  the  heart  of  the  great  city,  was  a 
waste  that  was  hardly  less  than  criminal. 

The  coming  of  the  electric  locomotive  has  spelled  the 
way  by  which  that  waste  in  the  hearts  of  our  Ameri- 
can cities  may  be  ended.  Concretely,  in  the  case  of 
the  new  Grand  Central,  it  made  a  splendid  solution 
of  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  growth  problems  in  the 
largest  city  of  our  continent.  For,  while  the  new 


112  The  Railroad  Problem 

Grand  Central,  service  and  approach  yards  considered 
even  as  a  single  level  —  some  sixty  acres  all  told  — 
are  larger  than  the  older  yard,  they  apparently  have 
disappeared.  In  that  thing  alone  a  great  obstacle  to 
the  constant  uptown  growth  of  New  York  has  been 
removed.  Sixteen  precious  city  blocks  have  been  given 
back  to  the  city  for  its  development.  And  already  a 
group  of  buildings  possessing  rare  architectural  unity 
and  beauty  have  begun  to  rise  upon  this  tract. 

There  are  other  American  cities  where  this  experi- 
ment—  no  longer  an  experiment,  if  you  please  —  might 
well  be  effected  today.  Of  these,  more  in  a  moment. 
For,  before  we  leave  the  question  of  the  Grand  Central 
consider  one  other  thing:  the  economic  value  of  its 
design  to  the  railroad  company  which  has  erected  it. 
It  was  only  a  moment  ago  that  we  were  speaking  of 
the  utter  extravagance  shown  in  the  designing  and  build- 
ing of  the  monumental  passenger  stations  in  so  many 
of  our  metropolitan  cities.  The  New  York  Central,  for 
reasons  of  its  own,  has  been  reticent  in  stating  both 
the  cost  of  the  new  Grand  Central  and  the  income 
which  it  derives  not  only  from  the  rentals  of  the  privi- 
leges in  the  station  itself  —  restaurants,  news  stands, 
barber  shops,  checking  stands,  and  the  like — but  also 
from  the  ground  rental  of  the  great  group  of  huge 
buildings  which  it  has  permitted  to  spring  up  over  its 
electrified  station  yards.  It  is  known,  however,  that 
this  income  is  not  only  sufficient  to  pay  the  interest  upon 
the  investment  of  the  new  terminal,  to  provide  slowly 
but  surely  a  sinking  fund  for  the  retirement  of  the 
bonds  which  have  been  issued  for  the  building  of  the 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  113 

terminal,  but  also  to  go  a  considerable  distance  toward 
the  actual  operating  expenses  of  the  terminal. 

Here,  then,  is  the  first  of  our  giant  opportunities 
for  the  railroader  of  tomorrow.  There  is,  of  course, 
no  novelty  in  rentals  from  ordinary  station  privileges. 
The  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  by  the  development  of 
the  electric  locomotive,  was  enabled  to  tunnel  both  the 
Hudson  and  the  East  rivers  and  thus  to  realize  its 
dream  of  long  years  —  a  terminal  situated  in  the  heart 
of  Manhattan  Island;  a  passenger  terminal  so  situated 
as  to  place  the  great  railroad  of  the  red  cars  in  a  real 
competitive  position  with  the  railroad  of  the  Vander- 
bilts,  which  so  long  had  held  exclusive  terminal  fa- 
cilities within  the  congested  island  of  Manhattan.  The 
Pennsylvania  did  not  do  the  thing  by  halves  —  it  rarely 
does;  it  built  what  is  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt 
the  most  beautiful  railroad  station  in  America,  if  not 
in  the  entire  world.  The  majesty  of  its  waiting  room 
is  such  as  to  make  it  perhaps  the  loveliest  apartment 
in  all  these  United  States. 

But  even  the  Pennsylvania  lacked  the  opportunity  for 
economic  return  that  was  gained  out  of  the  new  Grand 
Central  station,  hardly  a  mile  distant.  That  it  was 
not  asleep  to  the  possibilities  is  shown  by  the  double 
row  of  high-rental  shops  which  line  the  arcade  entrance 
to  that  waiting  room.  A  central  post-office,  a  clearing 
house  for  the  great  mail  of  New  York,  was  erected 
spanning  the  maze  of  tracks  at  one  end  of  the  station. 
And  recently  the  railroad  has  begun  the  erection  of  a 
huge  hotel  spanning  the  tracks  at  the  other  end  In 
this  it  is  following  the  example  of  the  New  York  Cen- 


114  The  Railroad  Problem 

tral,  which  some  time  ago  devised  a  group  of  hotels 
as  a  part  of  the  development  of  the  Grand  Central 
property.  One  of  these  hotels  is  completed  and  im- 
mensely popular;  the  other  has  just  been  begun.  The 
New  York  Central  will  not  only  derive  a  generous 
ground  rent  from  these  taverns  —  it  places  itself  in  a 
splendid  strategic  position  to  receive  the  traffic  of  their 
patrons.  It  is  a  somewhat  singular  thing  —  an  instance 
perhaps,  of  the  lack  of  vision  of  railroaders  of  an 
earlier  generation  —  that  modern  hotels  were  not  long 
ago  made  an  integral  part  of  our  larger  passenger  ter- 
minals at  least.  Our  English  cousins  have  not  over- 
looked this  opportunity.  The  great  hotels  builded  into 
their  terminals  have  long  since  enjoyed  a  world-wide 
reputation  for  their  excellence.  Upon  our  own  conti- 
nent both  the  Canadian  Pacific  and  the  Grand  Trunk 
railroads  have  not  been  slow  to  take  advantage  of 
similar  opportunities.  And  to  a  considerable  degree, 
at  least,  their  example  has  been  followed  by  certain 
roads  right  in  the  United  States  —  the  Santa  Fe  and  the 
Delaware  and  Hudson  are  the  first  to  come  to  my 
mind.  The  hotels  of  these  railroads  may  not  be,  in 
themselves,  directly  profitable.  But  there  is  no  ques- 
tion but  that  they  are  distinct  factors  in  the  develop- 
ment of  passenger  traffic,  and  so,  in  the  long  run, 
distinctly  profitable. 

Consider  for  an  instant,  if  you  will,  the  possibilities 
of  the  electrified  passenger  terminal  as  applied  to  some 
others  of  our  metropolitan  American  cities.  Take  Bos- 
ton, for  instance.  In  that  fine  old  town  the  electrifica- 


THE    P.    R.    R.'S    ELECTRIC    SUBURBAN    ZONE 

The    block    system    operated    automatically    by    electricity.      The    signal    over    the 
right  hand  track  reads,  "Stop."     Picture  taken  near  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 


ELECTRICITY    INTO    ITS    OWN 

Electric  suburban  train  on  the  main  line  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  between 
Philadelphia   and    Paoli. 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  115 

tion  of  its  two  great  passenger  terminals  some  time 
ago  approached  the  dignity  of  becoming  a  real  issue. 
Oddly  enough  the  two  railroads  which  would  develop 
the  situation  in  the  larger  of  its  two  terminals  —  the 
South  Station  —  are  the  New  Haven  and  the  New 
York  Central,  the  lessee  of  the  Boston  and  Albany. 
Though  both  of  these  systems  participate  in  the  joint 
operation  of  the  new  Grand  Central  Terminal  of 
New  York,  neither  of  them  has  leaped  at  the  possibility 
in  Boston.  The  tremendous  financial  difficulties  through 
which  the  New  Haven  property  has  been  struggling  for 
the  last  six  or  eight  years  and  from  which  it  has  not 
yet  emerged,  are  undoubtedly  the  cause  of  this.  The 
Boston  and  Maine  Railroad,  which  owns  and  operates 
the  North  Station,  is  in  even  worse  financial  plight. 
And  it  is  hard  for  an  outsider  to  see  any  immediate 
possibility  of  the  application  of  electric  power  to  the 
great  North  Station  and  the  vast  network  of  through 
and  suburban  lines  which  radiate  from  it.  Nor  is  the 
North  Station  so  situated  as  to  render  it  possible  today 
to  give  it  an  economic  development  even  approximating 
that  of  the  Grand  Central. 

The  Boston  and  Albany  is  a  co-tenant  with  the  New 
Haven  in  the  huge  and  murky  South  Station.  It  has 
always  been  a  rich  railroad.  Twenty-five  years  ago 
it  was  building  superb  stone  bridges  and  stations,  struc- 
tures of  real  architectural  worth  —  a  full  quarter  of 
a  century  it  was  in  advance  of  almost  every  other  rail- 
road in  America.  In  those  days  the  Boston  and  Albany 
probably  did  not  dream  that  the  time  would  come  when 
its  chief  asset  would  be  the  value  of  its  right  of  way 


116  The  Railroad  Problem 

across  the  newer  and  the  finer  portion  of  Boston.  "  The 
Albany  Road,"  as  the  older  Bostonians  like  to  term 
the  B.  and  A.,  has  the  extreme  possibilities  of  cost  for 
the  electric  transformation  of  its  lines  all  the  way  from 
Worcester  east,  not  only  met  but  many  times  multi- 
plied in  the  development  possibilities  of  the  Back  Bay 
district  which  it  now  traverses  with  its  through  track 
and  interrupts  with  its  somewhat  ungainly  storage 
yards.  These  yards,  now  used  for  the  holding  of  empty 
passengers  coaches,  occupy  tremendously  valuable  acres 
on  Boylston  Street  within  a  block  of  Copley  Square  — 
the  artistic  and  literary  center  of  the  Hub.  They  are 
essential,  perhaps,  to  the  economical  operation  of  the 
road's  terminal,  but  when  you  come  to  consider  the 
growth  of  the  city,  a  tremendous  waste.  They  have 
stood  —  a  noisy,  dirty,  open  space  —  stretching  squarely 
across  the  path  of  Boston's  finest  possible  development. 
If  these  were  marshlands,  like  those  that  used  to 
abound  along  the  Charles  River,  Boston  long  ago  would 
have  filled  them  in  and  added  many  valuable  building 
sites  to  its  taxable  area.  For  remember  that  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Grand  Central  Terminal  has  proceeded 
far  enough  already  to  show  that  in  these  days  of  heavy 
steel  and  concrete  construction,  and  with  the  absolute 
cleanliness  of  electric  railroad  operation,  it  is  possible 
to  build  a  hotel  over  a  big  railroad  yard  without  one 
guest  in  a  thousand  ever  knowing  that  a  train  is  being 
handled  underneath  his  feet  every  thirty  seconds  or 
thereabouts.  Indeed,  in  the  Grand  Central  scheme  pro- 
vision is  being  made  already  for  the  construction  of  an 
opera  house  right  over  the  station  approach  tracks;  the 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  117 

congregation  of  St.  Bartholomew's  is  building  over 
the  same  railroad  yards  one  of  the  finest  church  struc- 
tures in  America. 

Here,  then,  is  a  golden  opportunity  for  the  Boston 
and  Albany — by  the  substitution  of  electric  power 
for  steam  and  the  roofing  of  its  yards  —  to  develop 
those  tremendously  valuable  vacant  acres  back  of  Cop- 
ley Square;  and  the  man  who  goes  to  Boston  ten  years 
hence  probably  will  not  see  a  smoky  gash  cut  diagonally 
through  the  heart  of  one  of  the  handsomest  cities  in 
America  in  order  to  permit  a  busy  railroad  to  deliver 
its  passenger  and  freight  at  a  convenient  downtown 
point.  It  is  hard  to  estimate  the  financial  benefits  which 
eventually  will  result  to  the  Boston  and  Albany  of  cel- 
larless  city  squares  over  its  Boylston  Street  yards.  The 
benefit  to  Boston,  like  the  benefit  to  New  York  through 
the  development  of  the  Grand  Central  and  Pennsyl- 
vania terminals,  is  hardly  to  be  expressed  in  dollars 
and  cents. 

In  Chicago  the  question  of  terminal  electrification 
has  taken  a  less  definite  form  than  in  Boston,  although 
the  Chicagoans  are  making  fearful  outcry  against  the 
filth  that  is  poured  out  over  their  city  from  thousands 
of  soft-coal  locomotives.  The  Illinois  Central  has  been 
ranked  as  the  chief  offender  because  of  its  command- 
ing location  —  blocking  as  it  does  the  lovely  lake  front 
for  so  many  miles.  Chicago  has  ambitious  plans  for 
that  lake  front.  You  may  see  them,  hanging  upon  the 
walls  of  her  Art  Institute.  These  plans,  of  necessity, 
embrace  the  transformation  not  only  of  the  terminal 


118  The  Railroad  Problem 

but  of  the  railroad  tracks  within  her  heart  from  steam 
to  electric  operation. 

Perhaps  Chicago's  plans  are  more  definite  than  those 
of  the  railroads  that  serve  her.  It  is  significant  that 
the  great  North  Western  Terminal,  still  very  new, 
was  builded  with  a  slotted  train-shed  roof  in  order  to 
release  the  smoke  and  foul  gases  from  the  many  steam 
locomotives  which  are  constantly  using  it.  It  is  equally 
significant  that  the  new  Union  Station,  which  is  being 
built  to  accommodate  four  others  of  her  largest  rail- 
roads is  also  being  equipped  with  a  slotted  train-shed 
roof,  and  for  the  same  reason.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  gratifying  to  notice  that  the  tentative  plans  for 
the  new  Illinois  Central  terminal  contemplate  the  erec- 
tion of  a  double-decked  station,  very  similar  in  type 
to  the  new  Grand  Central  —  a  station  which,  from  the 
very  nature  of  its  design,  must,  of  necessity,  use  elec- 
tric traction.  Doubly  gratifying  this  is  to  Chicagoans: 
for  as  we  have  already  said,  the  Illinois  Central,  which, 
through  its  occupation  of  the  lake  front  by  its  maze 
of  steam-operated  tracks,  has  so  long  hampered  the 
really  artistic  development  of  Chicago's  greatest  natural 
asset  —  the  edge  of  its  lovely  lake.  For  some  years 
past  the  Illinois  Central  has  been  particularly  slow  to 
make  the  best  uses  of  its  great  suburban  zone  south  of 
Chicago;  slow  to  realize  its  even  larger  opportunities 
of  a  development  even  greater  than  that  of  today.  This 
has  come  home  with  peculiar  force  to  the  many,  many 
thousands  of  commuters  who  use  its  suburban  trains 
each  day.  Now  they  know  why  the  road  has  been 
so  loath  to  retire  its  antique  cars  and  locomotives  in 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  119 

this  service.  The  filing  of  the  primary  plans  for  its 
new  terminal  on  the  lake  front  at  Twelfth  Street  and 
Michigan  Avenue  shows  that  the  road  is  at  last  plan- 
ning to  do  the  big  thing  in  a  really  big  way.  And  it 
is  not  fair  to  suppose  that  it  has  overlooked  a  single 
economic  possibility  of  the  electric  development  of  its 
immensely  valuable  terminal.  The  result  of  this  devel- 
opment upon  the  other  railroads  with  their  steam-oper- 
ated terminals  in  the  heart  of  Chicago,  will  be  awaited 
with  interest.1 

Philadelphia  stands  next  to  New  York  among  east- 
ern cities  in  the  electric  development  of  its  terminals, 
although  it  is  interesting  to  note  here  and  now  that 
for  twenty  years  past  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
has  handled  both  freight  and  passenger  trains  with 
electric  power  through  its  double  terminal  and  long 
tunnel  in  the  heart  of  that  city  and  has  handled  them 
both  economically  and  efficiently.  The  wonder  only  is 


1  The  filing  of  further  plans  for  the  development  of  its  main  passenger 
terminal  in  Chicago  would  indicate  decidedly  that  the  Illinois  Central 
had  not  overlooked  the  possibility  of  the  electric  development  of  its 
great  suburban  territory  there.  For  the  plans  now  not  only  include  the 
new  terminal,  itself,  but  the  complete  electrification  of  the  suburban 
service  on  the  main  line,  as  well  as  the  South  Chicago,  Blue  Island, 
Kensington  and  Eastern  branches  —  all  told,  some  forty  miles  of  line  — 
and  involving  for  electric  equipment  alone  the  expenditure  of  about 
$25,000,000.  The  railroad  is  to  give  up  a  large  portion  of  the  ground 
occupied  by  the  existing  station  to  permit  of  the  widening  and  extension 
of  the  Lake  Front  Park,  and  its  approaches.  An  interesting  part  of  the 
whole  terminal  scheme  is  that  which  provides  that  the  entire  portion  of 
the  Illinois  Central  tracks  between  the  present  main  passenger  terminal 
at  Twelfth  street,  which,  in  a  general  way,  will  become  the  site  of  the 
new  one,  and  Randolph  street  —  reaching  the  entire  eastern  edge  of  the 
Loop  District  —  will  become  an  elongated  suburban  station.  From  the 


120  The  Railroad  Problem 

that  its  chief  competitors  should  have  retained  steam 
power  so  long  as  a  motive  power  in  their  long  tunnels 
underneath  Baltimore.  Yet  it  is  one  of  these  competi- 
tors which  is  making  the  real  progress  in  the  Phila- 
delphia situation.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  which 
owns  and  operates  Broad  Street  Station,  probably  one 
of  the  best-located  passenger  terminals  in  any  of  the 
very  large  cities  of  America,  has  already  begun  to  use 
electricity  to  bring  a  large  number  of  its  suburban 
trains  in  and  out  of  that  station.  After  much  patient 
experimentation  it  has  evolved  a  comparatively  inex- 
pensive method  of  carrying  the  current  to  the  over- 
head trolleys  of  these  suburban  trains.  And  the  sys- 
tem has  already  proved  itself  so  economical  and  so 
successful  as  to  render  its  extension  to  other  portions 
of  the  system  a  question  of  only  a  comparatively  short 
time. 

Electricity  should  spell  opportunity  to  steam  rail- 


several  platforms  of  this  station  subways  will  pass  under  Michigan 
avenue,  and  so  enable  commuters  to  avoid  the  heavy  automobile  traffic 
of  that  great  thoroughfare. 

The  new  terminal  is  to  be  planned  large  enough  to  accommodate 
eventually  the  many  passenger  trains  of  the  several  large  railroads  that 
now  enter  the  LaSalle  and  Dearborn  stations.  If  this  is  ever  brought 
to  pass  the  city  of  Chicago  will  have  accomplished  a  real  economic 
benefit.  For  the  land  occupied  by  these  two  great  stations  and  their 
yards  is  not  alone  a  considerable  acreage,  but  the  terminals  themselves 
have  acted  as  real  barriers  to  the  most  logical  growth  of  the  so-called 
Loop  District  —  the  busy  heart  of  commercial  Chicago.  Barred  on 
the  east  by  Lake  Michigan,  and  on  the  north  and  west  by  the  Chicago 
River,  this  commercial  center  would  have  grown  south  long  ago  had 
it  not  been  for  these  two  great  terminals.  Their  removal,  therefore, 
would  not  only  accomplish  a  passenger  traffic  consolidation  —  of  great 
advantage  to  the  through  traveler  —  but  would  open  a  great  downtown 
area  for  the  development  of  Chicago's  heart. 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  121 

roads.  Yet  until  recently  it  seemingly  has  failed  to 
do  this  very  thing.  It  has  looked  as  if  the  steam  rail- 
roaders of  a  past  generation  were  not  thoroughly 
awakened  to  the  opportunities  it  offered ;  were  not  will- 
ing, at  any  rate,  to  strive  to  find  a  way  toward  taking 
advantage  of  it.  To  understand  this  better  let  us  go 
back  for  a  moment  and  consider  the  one-time  but  short- 
lived rivalry  between  the  trolley  and  the  steam  locomo- 
tive. As  soon  as  the  electric  railroads  —  which  were, 
for  the  most  part,  developments  of  the  old-fashioned 
horse-car  lines  in  city  streets  —  began  to  reach  out  into 
the  country  from  the  sharp  confines  of  the  towns  the 
smarter  of  the  steam  railroad  men  began  to  show  inter- 
est in  the  new  motive  power.  It  would  have  been  far 
better  for  some  of  them  if  they  had  taken  a  sharper 
interest  at  the  beginning;  if  at  that  time  they  had  begun 
to  consider  earnestly  the  practical  adaptation  of  elec- 
tricity to  the  service  of  the  long-established  steam 
railroad. 

In  many  cases  the  short  suburban  railroads,  just  out- 
side of  the  larger  cities,  which  had  been  operated  by 
small  dummy  locomotives,  were  the  first  to  be  electri- 
fied; in  some  of  these  cases  they  became  extensions  of 
city  trolley  lines.  People  no  longer  were  obliged  to 
come  into  town  upon  a  poky  little  dummy  train  of 
uncertain  schedule  and  decidedly  uncertain  habits  and 
then  transfer  at  the  edge  of  the  crowded  portion  of  the 
city  to  horse  cars.  They  could  come  flying  from  the 
outer  country  to  the  heart  of  the  town  in  half  an  hour 
—  and,  as  you  know,  the  business  of  building  and  boom- 
ing suburbs  was  born.  After  these  suburban  lines  had 


122  The  Railroad  Problem 

been  developed  the  steam  railroad  men  of  some  of  the 
so-called  standard  lines,  began  to  study  the  situation. 
As  far  back  as  1895  the  Nantasket  branch  of  the  pres- 
ent New  Haven  system  was  made  into  an  electric  line. 
A  little  steam  road,  which  wandered  off  into  the  hills 
of  Columbia  County  from  Hudson,  New  York,  and  led 
a  precarious  existence,  extended  its  rails  a  few  miles 
and  became  the  third-rail  electric  line  from  Hudson  to 
Albany  and  a  powerful  competitor  for  passenger  traffic 
with  a  large  trunk-line  railroad.  The  New  Haven 
system  found  the  electric  third  rail  a  good  agent  be- 
tween Hartford  and  New  Britain  and  the  overhead 
trolley  a  good  substitute  for  the  locomotive  on  a  small 
branch  that  ran  for  a  few  miles  north  from  its  main 
line  at  Stamford,  Connecticut. 

The  problems  of  electric  traction  for  regular  rail- 
roads were  complicated,  however,  and  the  big  steam 
roads  avoided  them  until  they  were  forced  upon  their 
attention.  The  interurban  roads  spread  their  rails  — 
rather  too  rapidly  in  many  cases  —  making  them- 
selves frequently  the  opportunities  for  such  precarious 
financing  as  once  distinguished  the  history  of  steam 
roads,  and  also  frequently  making  havoc  with  thickly 
settled  branch  lines  and  main  stems  of  the  steam  rail- 
roads. In  a  good  many  cases  the  steam  roads  have 
had  to  dig  deep  into  their  pockets  and  buy  at  good  stiff 
prices  interurban  roads  —  a  situation  that  they  might 
have  anticipated  with  just  a  little  forethought. 

Such  a  condition  was  reached  in  a  populous  state 
along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  just  a  few  years  ago.  A 
big  steam  road,  plethoric  in  wealth  and  importance,  had 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  123 

a  branch  line  about  100  miles  in  length,  which  tapped 
a  dozen  towns,  each  ranging  from  10,000  to  30,000  in 
population.  The  branch  line  carried  no  through  busi- 
ness, nor  was  its  local  freight  traffic  of  importance,  but 
it  was  able  to  operate  profitably  eleven  local  passenger 
trains  in  each  direction  daily.  These  trains  were  well 
filled,  as  a  rule,  and  the  branch  returned  at  least  its 
equitable  share  toward  the  dividend  account  of  the 
entire  property.  As  long  as  it  did  that  no  one  at  head- 
quarters paid  any  particular  attention  to  it. 

There  was  no  physical  reason  why  that  branch  should 
not  have  been  made  into  an  interurban  electric  railroad 
a  dozen  years  ago  —  the  road  that  owned  it  has  never 
found  it  difficult  to  sell  bonds  for  the  improvement  of 
its  property.  Though  no  one  paid  particular  attention 
to  it  at  headquarters,  a  roving  young  engineer  with  a 
genius  for  making  money,  looked  at  it  enviously  —  at 
the  dozen  prosperous  towns  it  aimed  to  serve.  A  fort- 
night's visit  to  the  locality  convinced  him.  He  went 
down  to  a  big  city  where  capital  was  just  hungry  to  be 
invested  profitably  and  organized  an  electric  railroad 
to  thread  each  of  those  towns.  Before  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  steam  road  was  really  awake  to  the  situa- 
tion cars  were  running  on  its  electric  competitor.  And 
the  people  of  the  dozen  towns  seemed  to  enjoy  riding 
in  the  electric  cars  mightily  —  they  were  big  and  fast 
and  clean.  The  steam  road  made  a  brave  show  of 
maintaining  its  service.  It  hauled  long  strings  of  empty 
coaches  rather  than  surrender  its  pride ;  but  such  pride 
was  almost  as  empty  as  the  coaches. 

Sooner  or  later  any  business  organization  must  swal- 


124  The  Railroad  Problem 

low  false  pride;  and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  an  emissary 
of  the  steam  road  met  the  roving  young  engineer  and 
asked  him  to  put  a  price  on  his  property.  He  smiled, 
totaled  his  construction  and  equipment  costs,  added  a 
quarter  of  a  million  dollars  to  the  total,  and  tossed  the 
figures  across  the  table.  The  emissary  did  not  smile. 
He  reported  to  his  headquarters  and  the  steam  railroad 
began  to  fight  —  it  was  going  to  starve  out  the  resources 
of  its  trolley  competitor  by  cutting  passenger  rates  to  a 
cent  a  mile.  When  the  trolley  company  met  that,  the 
railroad  would  cut  the  rate  in  two  again  —  it  could 
afford  to  pay  people  to  ride  on  its  cars  rather  than  suffer 
defeat;  but  they  would  not  ride  on  its  cars,  even  at  a 
lower  rate.  And  once  again  the  steam  road's  emissary 
went  up  the  branch.  He  sought  out  the  trolley  en- 
gineer. The  trolley  man  was  indifferent. 

"Well,"  said  the  steam-road  man,  "we're  seeing 
you."  And  at  that  he  threw  down  a  certified  check  for 
the  exact  amount  that  had  been  agreed  upon  at  their 
previous  conference. 

The  trolley  man  did  not  touch  the  paper.  He  smiled 
what  lady  novelists  are  sometimes  pleased  to  call  an 
inscrutable  smile,  then  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"  What! "  gasped  the  emissary  from  the  steam  road. 
"Wasn't  that  your  figure?" 

"  It  was  —  but  isn't  now !  "  said  the  engineer.  "  It's 
up  a  quarter  of  a  million  now." 

"Why?" 

"  Just  to  teach  you  folks  politeness  and  a  little  com- 
mon decency,"  was  the  reply.  And  the  lesson  must 
have  taken  hold  —  for  the  steam  railroad  paid  the 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  125 

price.  The  result  was  that  it  again  held  the  territory 
and  could  regulate  the  transportation  tolls,  but  what  a 
price  had  been  paid !  Two  railroads  occupied  the  terri- 
tory that  was  a  good  living  for  but  one.  The  trolley 
line,  now  that  it  has  begun  to  depreciate  and  to  require 
constant  maintenance  repairs,  vies  with  the  desolate 
branch  of  the  steam  road,  which  runs  but  two  half-filled 
passenger  trains  a  day  upon  its  rails.  A  tax  is  laid  upon 
the  steam-road  property  —  a  greater  tax  upon  the  resi- 
dents of  the  valley  —  for  operating  man  after  operating 
man  is  going  to  "skin"  the  service  in  a  desperate  at- 
tempt to  make  an  extravagant  excess  of  facilities  pay 
its  way.  The  trolley  line  has  already  raised  many  of 
its  five-cent  fares  to  an  inconvenient  six  cents  —  the 
steam  branch  is  held  fast  by  the  provisions  of  its 
charter  and  the  watchfulness  of  a  state  regulating 
commission. 

And  in  the  beginning  the  entire  situation  could  have 
been  solved  easily  and  efficiently  by  the  comparatively 
modest  expenditures  required  to  electrify  the  steam 
railroad's  branch. 

A  good  many  railroads  have  taken  forethought. 
The  New  York  Central  found  some  of  its  profitable 
lines  in  western  New  York  undergoing  just  such  electric 
interurban  competition  and  a  few  years  ago  it  installed 
the  electric  third  rail  on  its  West  Shore  property  from 
Utica  to  Syracuse,  forty-four  miles. 

The  West  Shore  is  one  of  the  great  tragedies  in 
American  railroading.  Built  in  the  early  eighties 
from  Weehawken,  opposite  the  city  of  New  York,  to 
Buffalo,  it  had  apparently  no  greater  object  than  to 


126  The  Railroad  Problem 

parallel  closely  the  New  York  Central  and  to  attempt 
to  take  away  from  the  older  road  some  of  the  fine  busi- 
ness it  had  held  for  many  years.  After  a  bitter  rate 
war  the  New  York  Central,  with  all  the  resources  and 
the  abilities  of  the  Vanderbilts  behind  it,  won  decisively 
and  bought  its  new  rival  for  a  song;  but  a  property  so 
closely  paralleling  its  own  tracks  has  been  practically 
useless  to  it  all  the  way  from  Albany  to  Buffalo,  save 
as  a  relief  line  for  the  overflow  of  through  freight. 

So  the  West  Shore  tracks,  adapted  for  high-class, 
high-speed  through  electric  service  from  Utica  to  Syra- 
cuse, represented  a  happy  thought.  Under  steam  con- 
ditions only  two  passenger  trains  were  run  over  that 
somewhat  moribund  property  in  each  direction  daily, 
while  the  two  trains  of  sleeping  cars  passing  over  the 
tracks  at  night  were  of  practically  no  use  to  the  resi- 
dents of  those  two  cities.  Under  electric  conditions 
there  is  a  fast  limited  service  of  third-rail  cars  or  trains 
leaving  each  terminal  hourly,  making  but  a  few  stops 
and  the  run  of  over  forty-four  miles  in  an  hour  and 
twenty  minutes.  There  is  also  high-speed  local  service 
and  the  line  has  become  immensely  popular.  By  laying 
stretches  of  third  and  fourth  tracks  at  various  points 
the  movement  of  the  New  York  Central's  overflow 
through  freight  has  not  been  seriously  incommoded. 
The  electric  passenger  service  is  not  operated  by  the 
New  York  Central  but  by  the  Oneida  Railways  Com- 
pany, in  which  the  controlling  interests  of  the  steam 
road  have  .large  blocks  of  stock. 

Similarly  the  Erie  Railroad  disposed  of  a  decaying 
branch  of  its  system,  running  from  North  Tonawanda 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  127 

to  Lockport,  to  the  Buffalo  street-railroad  system, 
though  reserving  for  itself  the  freight  traffic  in  and  out 
of  Lockport.  The  Buffalo  road  installed  the  overhead 
trolley  system  and  now  operates  an  efficient  and  profit- 
able trolley  service  upon  that  branch.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  the  Erie  saw  the  application  of  these  ideas  and 
decided  that  it  was  better  to  take  its  own  profits  from 
electric  passenger  service  than  to  rent  again  its  branches 
to  outside  companies  —  and  perhaps  because  it  also 
foresaw  the  coming  electrification  of  its  network  of 
suburban  lines  in  the  metropolitan  district  around  New 
York  and  wished  to  test  electric  traction  to  its  own 
satisfaction  —  but  ten  years  ago  it  changed  the  subur- 
ban service  lines  from  the  south  up  into  Rochester  from 
steam  to  electric.  More  recently  it  has  tried  a  third 
method — by  organizing  an  entirely  separate  trolley 
company  to  build  an  overhead  trolley  road  paralleling 
its  main  line  from  Waverly,  New  York,  to  Corning, 
New  York.  In  some  stretches  this  new  trolley  road  is 
built  on  the  right  of  way  of  the  Erie's  main  line. 

The  Erie  people  have  preferred  to  conduct  their 
electrification  experiments  in  outlying  lines  of  compara- 
tively slight  traffic  rather  than  to  commit  themselves  to 
a  great  electrification  problem  in  their  congested  terri- 
tory round  New  York  and  make  some  blunder  that 
could  be  rectified  only  at  a  cost  of  many  millions  of 
dollars.  That  seems  good  sense,  and  the  Pennsylvania 
followed  the  same  plan.  While  its  great  new  station 
in  New  York  was  still  a  matter  of  engineer's  blueprints, 
it  began  practical  experiments  with  electric  traction  in 
the  flat  southern  portion  of  New  Jersey.  It  owned  a 


128  The  Railroad  Problem 

section  of  line  ideally  situated  in  every  respect  for  such 
experiments  —  its  original  and  rather  indirect  route 
from  Camden  to  Atlantic  City,  which  had  since  been 
more  or  less  superseded  by  a  shorter  "  air-line  "  route. 
The  third  rail  was  installed  and  the  new  line  became  at 
once  popular  for  suburban  traffic  in  and  out  of  Phila- 
delphia and  for  the  great  press  of  local  traffic  between 
Philadelphia  and  Atlantic  City.  Of  the  success  of  that 
move  on  the  part  of  the  Pennsylvania  there  has  never 
been  the  slightest  question.  Regular  trains  have  been 
operated  for  several  years  over  this  route  at  a  high  rate 
of  speed,  and  not  the  slightest  difficulty  has  been  found 
in  maintaining  the  schedules. 

In  the  Far  West  the  Southern  Pacific  has  made  nota- 
ble progress  in  the  application  of  electricity  as  a  motive 
power  for  branch-line  traffic.  Practically  frll  of  its 
many  suburban  lines  in  and  around  Portland  and  Oak- 
land (just  across  the  bay  from  San  Francisco)  are 
today  being  operated  in  this  way — which  enables  mod- 
ern steel  passenger  trains  of  two  or  three  coaches  to 
be  operated  at  very  frequent  intervals,  thus  providing 
a  branch-line  service  practically  impossible  to  obtain  in 
any  other  way.  When,  in  the  next  chapter,  we  come  to 
consider  the  automobile  as  a  factor  in  railroad  trans- 
portation, we  shall  consider  this  entire  question  of 
branch-line  operation  in  far  greater  detail.  I  always 
have  considered  it  one  of  the  great  neglected  opportu- 
nities of  the  average  American  railroad.  But  to  take 
advantage  of  it  means  a  more  intense  study  of  its  details 
and  its  problems.  Our  railroads,  as  you  know  already, 
have  been  woefully  under  officered.  It  is  chiefly  because 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  129 

of  this  serious  defect  in  their  organization  that  the 
branch  lines,  their  problems  and  their  possibilities,  have 
so  long  been  neglected. 

One  thing  more  before  we  are  entirely  away  from 
this  entire  question  of  the  electric  operation  of  the 
standard  railroad:  The  use  of  this  silent,  all-powerful 
motive  force  is  by  no  means  to  be  confined  to  suburban 
or  to  branch  lines.  The  New  Haven  management  is 
steadily  engaged  in  lengthening  and  extending  its  New 
York  suburban  zone.  In  the  beginning,  while  it  still 
was  in  a  decidedly  experimental  state,  this  zone  ex- 
tended only  from  the  Grand  Central  Terminal  to  Stam- 
ford, Connecticut — some  thirty-four  miles  all  told. 
Now  it  has  been  extended  and  completed  through  to 
New  Haven,  practically  twice  the  original  distance.  In 
a  little  while  it  is  probable  that  the  New  Haven  will 
have  completed  another  link  in  this  great  electric  chain 
which  slowly  but  surely  it  is  weaving  for  itself.  And 
there  are  traffic  experts  in  New  England  who  do  not 
hesitate  to  express  their  belief  that  in  another  ten 
years,  perhaps  in  half  that  time,  all  through  traffic 
between  New  York  and  Boston  —  235  miles  —  will 
move  behind  electric  locomotives. 

There  is  nothing  particularly  visionary  in  this.  Last 
year  I  rode  a  longer  distance  than  that  on  a  standard 
express  train  —  the  Olympian,  one  of  the  finest  trains 
upon  the  North  American  continent,  which  means,  of 
course,  in  the  whole  world.  And  the  electrification  of 
the  main  line  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul 
Railway,  whose  boast  it  is  that  it  owns  and  operates  the 


130  The  Railroad  Problem 

Olympian,  was  then  but  half  complete.  To  be  even 
more  exact,  only  one-half  of  the  first  unit  of  installa- 
tion, from  Harlowton,  Montana,  to  Avery,  Idaho,  had 
been  installed.  Workmen  were  still  busy  west  of 
Deer  Lodge,  rigging,  stretching  the  wires,  finishing  the 
substations  and  making  the  busy  line  ready  for  electric 
locomotives  all  the  way  through  to  Avery.  And  it 
was  announced  that  when  Avery  was  reached  and 
the  first  contract-section  completed  —  440  miles,  about 
equal  to  the  distance  between  New  York  and  Buffalo  — 
work  would  be  started  on  another  great  link  to  the 
west;  this  one  to  reach  the  heart  of  Spokane  itself. 
And  in  a  little  longer  time  electric  locomotives  would 
be  hauling  the  yellow  trains  of  the  Milwaukee  right 
down  to  tidewater  at  Seattle  —  a  span  of  trollified  line 
equaling  roughly  about  one-half  the  entire  run  from 
Chicago  to  Puget  Sound.1 

1  Definite  announcement  has  been  made  by  the  Milwaukee  that  it 
will  begin  the  extension  of  its  electric-equipped  main  line  through  the 
Cascades  to  Puget  Sound  early  in  the  summer  of  1917.  This  will  mean 
that  for  a  time  there  will  be  a  "  gap "  for  about  400  miles  in  the 
vicinity  of  Spokane,  where  steam  will  continue  to  be  used  as  a  motive 
power.  For  a  number  of  miles  west  of  Spokane  the  Milwaukee's  main 
passenger  line  has  trackage  rights  over  the  Oregon-Washington  system. 
This  fact,  and  the  fact  that  electrification  is  best  justified  economically 
in  mountainous  districts  is  responsible  for  this  "  gap."  It  is  probable 
that  it  will  not  continue  to  exist  for  many  years  more. 

At  the  present  time  the  very  high  cost  of  electric  locomotives  suitable 
for  hauling  heavy  freight  and  passenger  trains  for  long  distances  is 
making  the  Milwaukee  —  today  the  unquestioned  leader  in  this  great 
progressive  policy  of  electrification  —  move  both  slowly  and  surely. 
According  to  the  last  annual  report  of  the  road  the  most  recent  lot  of 
twenty  engines  cost  an  average  of  $114,396.30  each  —  or  about  four  or 
five  times  the  cost  of  the  largest  steam  locomotive.  Despite  the  tremen- 
dous initial  expense  of  these  electric  engines,  their  remarkable  perform- 
ances more  than  justify  their  cost. 


THE  OLYMPIAN 

The   crack   train    of   the    Chicago,    Milwaukee  &   St.    Paul    Railway,   drawn  by   an 
Electric   Motor. 


ORE   TRAINS   HAULED   BY   ELECTRICITY 

Where    the     Chicaeo,    Milwaukee,    &    St.     Paul    and    the     Butte,    Anaconda,    & 
Pacific   Railways  cross   near   Butte,   Montana. 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  131 

Now  here  is  an  undertaking — the  harnessing  of  the 
mountain  streams  of  Montana  and  Idaho  and  Washing- 
ton toward  the  pulling  of  the  freight  and  the  passenger 
traffic  of  the  newest  and  best  constructed  of  our  trans- 
continentals  for  half  their  run.  Translated  into  the 
comfort  of  the  passenger,  it  means  that  for  a  long 
night  and  two  days  that  are  all  too  short,  the  trail  of 
the  Olympian  is  dustless,  smokeless,  odorless;  it  means 
that  the  abrupt  stops  and  jerking  starts  of  even  the 
best  of  passenger  engineers  are  entirely  elimi- 
nated. The  electric  locomotive  starts  and  stops  imper- 
ceptibly. It  is  one  of  the  very  strongest  points  in  its 
favor. 

And  when  you  come  to  freight  traffic  —  the  earning 
backbone  of  the  greater  part  of  our  railroad  mileage 
in  the  United  States  —  the  operating  advantages  of  the 
electric  locomotive  over  its  older  brother  of  the  steam 
persuasion  are  but  multiplied.  The  electric  locomo- 
tives of  the  Milwaukee,  being  the  newest  and  the  largest 
yet  constructed,  have  missed  none  of  these  advantages. 
As  the  greatest  of  all  these,  take  the  single  tremendous 
question  of  regenerative  braking. 

Up  to  this  time  no  one  has  ever  thought  of  trans- 
forming the  gravity  pull  of  a  heavy  train  going  down- 
grade into  motive  energy  for  another  train  coming 
uphill.  Talk  about  visions!  How  is  this  for  one? 
Yet  this  is  the  very  thing  that  the  Milwaukee  is  doing 
today — upon  each  of  its  heavily  laden  trains  as  they 
cross  and  recross  the  backbone  of  the  continent.  Its 
great  new  locomotives  take  all  the  power  they  need  for 
the  steady  pull  as  they  climb  the  long  hills;  but  when 


132  The  Railroad  Problem 

they  descend  those  selfsame  hills  they  return  the  greater 
part  of  that  power — sixty-eight  per  cent,  if  you  insist 
upon  the  exact  figure. 

Perhaps  you  drive  an  automobile.  If  so  you  prob- 
ably have  learned  to  come  down  the  steeper  hills  by 
use  of  compression — by  a  reversal  of  the  energies  of 
your  motor,  until  it  is  actually  working  against  the  com- 
pelling force  of  gravity.  Your  brakes  are  held  only 
for  emergency.  That  is  the  only  part  which  the  brakes 
on  a  Milwaukee  electric  train  play  today.  The  electric 
locomotive  in  a  large  sense  is  its  own  brake.  In  other 
words,  a  turn  of  the  engineer's  hand  transforms  its 
great  motors  into  dynamos;  gravity  pulls  the  trains  and 
forces  the  dynamos  to  turn — back  goes  the  sixty-eight 
per  cent  of  current  into  the  copper  trolley-wire  over- 
head; over  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain  some- 
where a  train  ascending  toward  the  summit  feels 
instantly  the  influx  of  new  energy  and  quickens  its 
speed. 

Here  is  the  railroading  of  tomorrow  thrusting  itself 
into  the  very  door  of  today.  You  certainly  cannot 
accuse  the  management  of  the  Milwaukee  of  any  lack 
of  vision.  And  perhaps  it  is  only  the  highest  form  of 
tribute  to  it  to  mention  the  fact  that  the  Great  North- 
ern, the  strongest  of  the  competitors  in  the  Northwest, 
has  been  watching  with  keen  interest  the  tremendous 
operating  economies  that  electricity  has  brought  to  the 
road  of  the  yellow  cars  and  has  already  announced  its 
intention  of  transforming  at  once  its  main  line  between 
Seattle  and  Spokane  —  200  miles  —  from  a  steam  into 
an  electrically  operated  line.  The  Great  Northern,  as 


Opportunity  of  the  Railroad  133 

everyone  should  know  by  this  time,  is  the  first  and  the 
largest  of  the  great  group  of  Hill  roads.  And  no  one 
has  ever  accused  James  J.  Hill,  or  the  men  who  fol- 
lowed after  him,  of  any  lack  of  real  transportation 
vision. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  IRON  HORSE  AND  THE  GAS  BUGGY 

THE  other  day  the  convention  of  an  important  Epis- 
copalian diocese  was  held  in  a  large  town  in  one 
of  our  eastern  states.  The  general  passenger  agent 
of  a  certain  good-sized  railroad  which  radiates  from 
that  town  in  every  direction  saw  a  newspaper  clipping 
in  relation  to  the  convention  and  promptly  dictated  a 
letter  to  his  assistant  there  asking  about  how  many  pas- 
sengers they  had  had  as  a  result  of  the  gathering.  The 
reply  was  prompt. 

"  None,"  it  read. 

The  G.P.A.  reached  for  his  ready-packed  grip  and 
took  the  next  train  up  there.  He  wanted  to  find  out  the 
trouble.  It  was  not  hard  to  locate.  It  was  a  pretty 
poor  shepherd  of  a  pretty  poor  flock  who  did  not  pos- 
sess some  lamb  who  commanded  a  touring  car  of  some 
sort.  And  it  was  a  part  of  the  lamb's  duty,  nay,  his 
privilege,  to  drive  the  rector  to  the  convention.  They 
came  from  all  that  end  of  the  state  in  automobiles. 
And  what  had  in  past  years  been  a  source  of  decent 
revenue  to  the  railroad  which  covered  that  state  ceased 
to  be  any  revenue  whatsoever. 

This  is  only  one  of  many  such  cases.  Any  county  or 
state  or  interstate  gathering  held  in  a  part  of  the 
country  where  road  conditions  are  even  ordinarily  good 

134 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  135 

may  count  on  folk  coming  to  it  by  automobile  up  to  a 
i5O-mile  radius,  ofttimes  from  much  greater  distances. 
It  is  not  argued  that  the  trip  is  less  expensive ;  the  con- 
trary is  probably  invariably  true.  Only  today  folks 
have  the  cars,  and  a  meeting  in  an  adjoining  county 
gives  a  welcome  excuse  for  a  little  trip.  Need  more 
be  said? 

Only  this.  Those  same  folk  might  otherwise  have 
gone  upon  the  cars.  And  the  railroad's  assistant  gen- 
eral passenger  agent  could  have  sat  down  beside  his 
typewriter  and  written  a  neat  little  letter  to  his  chief 
calling  attention  to  the  increased  business  resulting  from 
the  meeting  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  the  X.Y.G.C.  this 
year  as  compared  with  that  of  last — the  inference 
being  nearly  as  clear  to  the  chief  as  to  the  man  who 
had  created  the  aforesaid  increased  business.  Multiply 
these  lodge  meetings,  these  conventions,  these  convoca- 
tions; add  to  them  high-school  excursions  and  picnics 
and  fraternity  field-days  almost  without  number;  pic- 
ture to  yourself,  if  you  will,  the  highways  leading  to 
these  high  spots  of  American  life  crowded  with  private 
and  public  motor  cars  of  all  descriptions  and  you  can 
begin  to  realize  a  serious  situation  which  confronts  the 
passenger  traffic  men  of  the  big  steam  railroads.  Upon 
the  eastern  and  western  edges  of  the  land,  where  high- 
way conditions  have  attained  their  highest  development, 
the  situation  is  all  but  critical;  in  the  central  and  south- 
ern portions  of  the  country  it  is  already  serious. 

Here  is  one  of  the  big  hard-coal  roads  up  in  the 
northeastern  corner  of  the  U.S.A.  Its  president  lays 
much  stress  upon  the  value  to  the  property  of  its  an- 


136  The  Railroad  Problem 

thracite  holdings  and  carryings.  Yet  he  is  far  too  good 
a  railroader  to  ignore  the  value  of  its  passenger  traffic. 
Because  of  this  last  his  road  has  builded  huge  hotels 
and  connecting  steamboats.  In  past  years  its  passen- 
ger revenues  have  even  rivaled  the  tremendous  earnings 
of  its  coal  business.  Because,  however,  of  the  compe- 
tition of  the  automobile  these  have  slipped  backward 
for  the  past  few  years.  And  the  president  of  the  road 
has  reasoned  it  out  in  an  ingenious  fashion. 

"There  are  4,339  motor  cars  licensed  in  Albany, 
Troy,  and  their  intermediate  towns  alone,"  he  says. 
"  If  each  of  these  carried  three  passengers  twenty-five 
miles  a  day  for  a  year  their  passenger-miles  would  equal 
those  of  our  entire  system  for  the  same  time." 

A  passenger-mile,  as  we  know  already,  is  one  of  the 
units  in  estimating  the  traffic  revenue  of  a  railroad.  It 
is  passenger-miles,  by  the  hundreds  and  the  thousands, 
that  the  railroads  of  New  England  are  losing  today. 
When  one  stands  beside  one  of  the  well-traveled  path- 
ways of  the  Ideal  Tour,  the  Real  Tour,  or  the  Mohawk 
Trail  and  sees  touring  cars  loaded  to  the  gunwales  with 
higgage  go  whizzing  by  him,  ten,  twenty  to  the  hour, 
he  begins  to  realize  this.1  More  than  50,000  visiting 
automobiles  were  registered  in  Massachusetts  this  last 

1  To  a  very  prominent  hotel  in  the  White  Mountains  five  years  ago, 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  patrons  came  by  train ;  last  year  ninety-five  per 
cent  of  the  guests  arrived  in  their  motoT  cars. 

"  Talk  about  getting  folks  to  go  to  California,  or  even  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,"  said  the  veteran  passenger  traffic  manager  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  our  transcontinental  carriers,  when  he  was  in  Boston  a  few 
weeks  ago  and  heard  of  this,  "  we  can  and  will  advertise,  but  we  are 
up  against  two  tremendous  competitors:  The  first  of  these  is  New 
York  City,  which  is  a  tremendous  permanent  and  perpetual  attraction 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  137 

summer.  There  were  last  year  in  the  United  States, 
2,445,664  automobiles.  With  a  carrying  capacity  aver- 
aging five  persons  to  a  car — 12,000,000  persons  all 
told  —  they  can  seat  three  times  as  many  persons  as  all 
our  railroad  cars  in  the  country  combined.  Not  all  of 
these  folk  would  travel  by  train  if  there  were  no  motor 
cars.  Some  of  them  are  riding  for  the  pure  joy  of  auto- 
mobile touring.  But  many  of  them  would  go  to  the 
mountains  or  the  coast  anyway  and  so  make  a  large 
addition  to  railroad  passenger  revenues.  The  vast 
increase  in  trunks  handled  over  reasonably  long  dis- 
tances by  the  express  companies  in  these  last  few  years 
is,  in  itself,  something  of  an  index  of  the  volume  of  this 
through  business,  which  is  today  traveling  by  motor. 

Now  cross  the  country  and  take  a  quick  glimpse  at 
the  situation  in  the  Northwest.  The  president  of  an 
important  steam  road  at  Portland  —  which  in  turn  con- 
trols both  city  and  interurban  lines  extending  out  from 
Portland  and  Spokane  —  is  peculiarly  qualified  to  speak 
of  the  situation  there. 

"  Our  road  has  suffered  severely  from  this  new  form 
of  automobile  competition/'  he  says.  "We  lost  last 
summer  quite  a  proportion  of  our  passenger  business 
moving  from  Portland  to  the  beaches  because  of  the 

to  all  the  rest  of  America  365  days  out  of  the  year.  The  second  is  the 
automobile,  the  family  car,  if  you  please,  into  which  has  gone  the 
recreation  money  which  otherwise  might  have  been  going  into  the 
ticket  wickets  of  our  railroads.  Think  of  it,  there  were  900,000  pleasure 
cars  built  and  sold  in  the  United  States  last  year,  while  the  experts  are 
placing  1,250,000  as  the  figure  for  1917!  More  than  $1,500,000,000  — 
an  almost  incredible  sum  —  was  spent  by  Americans  last  year  on 
automobiles,  and  all  the  things  which  directly  pertain  to  them.  What 
chance  has  the  railroad  against  such  a  giant  of  a  competitor?" 


138  The  Railroad  Problem 

completion  of  a  hard-surface  wagon  road  between  it 
and  them.  We  were  compelled  to  withdraw  several 
local  trains,  to  lay  off  a  number  of  trainmen  because  of 
this  new  competitor.  With  us  the  question  is  vital.  It 
is  still  more  vital  with  our  electric  interurban  proper- 
ties. Throughout  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington 
this  class  of  railroad  has  suffered  most  severely  from 
motor  competition,  and  with  the  decreased  cost  and 
increased  effectiveness  of  the  automobile  I  expect  such 
losses  to  increase  rather  than  to  diminish.  In  all  these 
states  there  have  been  large  expenditures  for  improved 
highroads  during  the  past  five  years;  many  times  under 
the  guise  of  providing  easy  and  inexpensive  trans- 
portation for  farm  products  to  markets.  But  these 
highroads  instead  of  being  built  from  the  transporta- 
tion centers  out  into  the  producing  region,  so  as  to 
serve  the  farms,  have  almost  invariably  paralleled 
steam  and  electric  lines.  As  a  result  the  transportation 
companies  have  been  heavily  taxed  to  construct  and 
maintain  highways  for  the  benefit  of  competitors  who 
are  carrying  both  passengers  and  freight  in  direct  com- 
petition with  them." 

The  Southern  Pacific,  whose  lines  cover  California 
like  a  fine  mesh,  has  been  hard  hit  by  this  new  form 
of  competition.  The  fine  new  highways  and  the  even 
climate  of  the  Golden  State,  which  brought  the  jitney 
to  its  highest  strength  there,  are  giving  stimulus  to  its 
bigger  brother — the  long-distance  motor  bus.  These 
have  multiplied  in  every  direction  until  today  there  are 
central  stations  in  the  larger  cities,  providing  waiting, 
smoking,  and  reading  rooms  in  charge  of  a  joint  em- 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  139 

ployee,  who  usually  acts  as  starter  and  information 
clerk  and  is  liberally  supplied  with  large  printed  sched- 
ules advertising  automobile  service  to  various  points. 
From  these  stations  the  routes  radiate  in  almost  every 
direction;  one  may  ride  from  San  Francisco  to  Stockton, 
80  miles ;  or  to  Fresno,  200  miles ;  connecting  there  with 
a  public  automobile  for  Los  Angeles,  some  250  miles 
farther.  From  Los  Angeles  there  are  still  more  routes : 
to  Bakersfield,  124  miles  over  the  new  Tejon  Pass 
route ;  to  Santa  Barbara,  about  100  miles ;  to  San  Diego, 
about  125  miles,  and  from  San  Diego  on  to  El  Centro 
in  the  Imperial  Valley,  another  1 16  miles. 

These  routes  are  generally  covered  with  touring  cars 
—  generally  second-hand  but  tried  and  capable  of  effi- 
cient and  reliable  service.  But  there  is  a  tendency 
toward  larger  cars,  where  the  volume  of  travel  war- 
rants; several  companies  operating  large  busses,  seating 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  persons  each.  A  very  good 
example  of  this  is  the  Peninsular  Rapid  Transit  Com- 
pany, which  operates  between  San  Francisco  and  San 
Mateo  and  between  San  Mateo  and  Palo  Alto. 

Fares  by  automobile  in  California  are  generally 
somewhat  lower  than  the  railroad  fares.  There  are 
instances,  however,  where  the  fares  are  equal  and  yet 
the  motor  cars  enjoy  the  bulk  of  the  business,  perhaps 
from  their  ability  to  pick  up  or  discharge  passengers 
anywhere  along  the  route  —  in  town  or  in  country,  per- 
haps from  their  frequency  and  flexibility  of  service. 
Several  attempts  made  by  the  railroads  to  regain  their 
traffic  by  reducing  rates  have  shown  these  things  to  be 
real  factors  in  the  situation. 


140  The  Railroad  Problem 

As  far  as  the  Southern  Pacific  is  concerned,  it  finds 
today  that  the  automobile  has  taken  the  bulk  of  its  one- 
way and  round-trip  short-haul  business,  leaving  it  the 
long-haul  and  commutation  traffic.  In  some  instances 
the  gasoline  buggy  has  helped  itself  to  long-haul  traffic 
as  well;  as  between  Los  Angeles  and  Bakersfield,  where 
the  distance  by  motor  car  over  the  wonderful  new 
Tejon  Pass  highroad  —  to  which  the  Southern  Pacific, 
as  chief  taxpayer  in  California,  has  contributed  most 
generously — is  but  124  miles,  against  170  miles,  the 
shortest  rail  distance.  The  gasoline  buggy  can  climb 
grades  and  round  curves  that  the  iron  horse  may  not 
even  attempt. 

There  is  genuine  feeling  among  many  of  the  railroad 
companies  of  the  land  that  the  new  competition  is  un- 
just. They  make  a  good  case  for  themselves.  Com- 
plaints are  coming  in  from  the  rail  carriers  all  the  way 
across  the  land.  New  York  has  appropriated  and 
expended  nearly  $100,000,000  in  building  a  system 
of  improved  highways  over  the  entire  state.  Like  the 
highways  of  California,  they,  too,  are  superb  roads. 
Not  only  do  they  link  all  the  big  cities  and  the  big 
towns  but  they  sometimes  stretch  for  many  miles 
through  the  fastnesses  of  the  forest  —  you  may  drive 
for  twenty  miles  through  the  Adirondacks  on  as  per- 
fect a  bit  of  pavement  as  any  city  park  may  boast  and 
yet  not  pass  more  than  one  or  two  human  habitations 
in  all  that  distance.  All  of  which  is  glorious  for  the 
motorist  and  his  friends,  to  say  nothing  of  the  hotel 
keepers  and  the  garage  owners  on  the  route.  But  how 
about  the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  which  covers 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  Hi 

the  greater  part  of  New  York  State  like  a  web  and 
which,  because  of  the  fact  that  it  is  its  chief  taxpayer, 
becomes  automatically  the  heaviest  contributor  to  these 
highways?  It  knows  that  every  mile  of  improved  road 
that  is  completed  is  going  to  mean  a  lessening  of  its 
revenues  from  local  passenger  traffic.  And  it  can  have, 
from  that  point  of  view,  small  comfort  from  seeing  the 
increasing  list  of  motor-car  owners  in  the  New  York 
State  towns. 

For  the  moment  leave  the  purely  pleasure  uses  of 
the  motor  car.  Consider  a  commercial  possibility  that 
is  increasing  almost  overnight.  The  auditing  depart- 
ments of  concerns  that  have  from  50  to  500  salesmen 
out  in  the  field  are  beginning  to  acquaint  themselves 
with  gasoline  and  tire  performances.  They  soon  will 
have  need  of  such  special  knowledge.  A  single  case 
will  illustrate: 

Two  drummers  working  out  of  Syracuse  —  the  one 
for  a  typewriter  concern  and  the  other  for  a  wholesale 
grocery  —  decided  to  cooperate.  Together  and  out  of 
their  own  funds  they  purchased  an  inexpensive  car — 
had  its  body  so  adjusted  that  back  of  the  driving  seat 
there  was  a  compartment  large  enough  for  a  goodly 
quantity  of  samples  and  the  valises  that  held  their 
personal  effects.  They  had  figured  that  upon  many  of 
the  local  lines  of  railroad,  operating  but  two  or  three 
trains  a  day  in  each  direction  at  the  most,  they  could 
not  under  the  most  favorable  conditions  "make"  more 
than  four  towns  a  day.  From  twenty  to  thirty  per 
cent  of  their  time  was  spent  in  the  lobbies  of  hotels  or 
country  stations  waiting  for  the  up  local  or  the  down. 


142  The  Railroad  Problem 

With  their  automobile  they  now  can  get  out  of  a  town 
as  soon  as  their  business  is  done  there.  And  during 
the  past  three  months  they  have  averaged  six  towns 
a  day. 

Here  is  a  possibility  of  the  automobile  that  the 
railroad  can  hardly  afford  to  ignore.  One  big  New 
England  road-  noted  in  a  recent  month  that  its  sale  of 
mileage  books — a  form  of  railroad  ticket  designed 
particularly  for  the  use  of  commercial  travelers  —  had 
declined  nearly  twenty-nine  per  cent  since  the  high- 
water  mark  three  years  before.  Investigation  on  its 
part  showed  that  the  drummers  all  through  its  territory 
were  beginning  to  get  automobiles.  The  houses  that 
employed  them  were  encouraging  them,  either  helping 
in  the  part  purchase  of  the  cars  or,  in  some  cases,  buying 
them  entirely.  They,  too,  had  discovered  that  their 
salesmen,  no  longer  dependent  on  the  infrequent  train 
service  of  branch  lines,  could  "make"  more  towns  in 
a  day. 

Here  is  our  ubiquitous  branch  line  bobbing  up  once 
again.  It  is  a  problem  which  seemingly  will  not  down. 
For  branch-line  passenger  service  is  closely  related  to 
this  last  phase  of  automobile  competition.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  a  good  many  shrewd  railroaders  —  as  well 
as  our  own  —  that  the  big  roads  have  not  always  given 
proper  attention  to  the  full  development  of  this  phase 
of  their  traffic.  Some  of  the  big  roads  —  some  of  the 
smaller  ones  too  —  have  given  this  traffic,  oftentimes 
valuable  in  itself  and  never  to  be  ignored  as  feeding 
possibility  of  main-line  and  competitive  traffic,  little  or 
no  attention.  Other  roads  ignore  it. 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  143 

"It  is  unprofitable,"  they  tell  you,  with  exceeding 
frankness.  "  If  there  is  any  money  at  all  in  the  pas- 
senger end  of  the  railroad  it  is  in  the  long  haul.  We 
have  our  branch  lines  and  of  course  we  shall  have  to 
continue  to  operate  them,  as  best  we  can.  But  they 
are  the  lean  of  our  business.  And  we  have  to  get  a 
lot  of  fat  on  the  long-haul  traffic  to  even  up  with  this 
discouraging  lean." 

It  is  because  of  this  theory — very  popular  in  some 
transportation  circles  —  that  so  many  branch-line  rail- 
roads have  today  no  more,  in  many  instances  even  less, 
trains  than  they  had  twenty  or  thirty  or  forty  years  ago. 
The  constant  tendency  has  been  to  cut  down  service 
upon  the  branches.  Such  cuts  generally  come  in  the 
recurrent  seasons  of  railroad  retrenchment.  But  the 
trains  cut  off  are  rarely  restored.  For  one  thing,  the 
branch-line  railroad  does  not  often  run  in  a  genuinely 
competitive  territory.  For  another,  there  is  apt  to  be 
less  protest  from  a  string  of  small  towns  and  large 
villages  than  from  one  or  two  large  cities  with  boards 
of  trade,  whose  secretaries  are  eternally  nagging  the 
railroads. 

Yet  these  small  towns  and  villages  —  ofttimes  the 
nucleus  and  the  birthplace  of  our  best  Americanism  — 
and  even  the  isolated  crossroads  have  some  rights.1 
One  of  the  largest  of  these  is  the  right  of  communication. 

1  "The  railroad  that  neglects  its  branch-line  service  is  playing  with 
fire  vastly  more  than  it  may  suppose,"  said  a  distinguished  railroad 
economist  only  the  other  day.  "  It  may  feel  that  it  has  an  economic 
right  to  neglect  branch-line  opportunities  because  of  the  limited  revenue 
opportunities  that  these  feeders  ofttimes  present.  But  it  must  not 
overlook  one  thing  —  the  patent  fact  that  many  of  the  voters,  the  men 


144  The  Railroad  Problem 

Some  of  them,  under  the  shrinkage  of  the  train  service 
of  the  single  branch-line  railroad  that  has  served  them, 
have  found  themselves  in  turn  shrinking  and  hardening. 
The  popular-priced  automobile  may  yet  prove  the  sal- 
vation of  these  towns.  The  tavern  at  the  crossroads 
has  been  repainted  and  is  serving  "chicken  and  waffle'1 
dinners,  the  general  store  thrives  anew  on  its  sale  of 
gasoline  and  oil.  But  best  of  all,  the  folks  in  adjoining 
villages  visit  back  and  forth.  They  mix  and  broaden. 
The  intercourse  that  they  were  denied  by  the  railroad 
has  been  given  them  through  the  agency  of  the 
automobile. 

Come  now  to  the  public  use  of  the  automobile.  And, 
although  many  railroaders  profess  to  scout  at  the  auto- 
mobile carrying  passengers  for  pay  and  state  their 
belief  that  the  increasing  number  of  privately  owned 
and  operated  cars  represents  their  real  problem,  yet  the 
motor  bus  operating  'cross  country  begins  to  bear,  in 
its  relation  to  the  steam  railroad,  a  strong  resemblance 
to  the  effect  of  the  jitney  upon  the  traction  road.  In 
this  last  case  the  opposition  quickly  reached  a  high  and 
dangerous  volume  and  then  subsided.  The  reasons 
why  the  jitney,  after  being  hailed  with  high  acclaim  all 
the  way  across  the  land,  has  disappeared  from  the 
streets  of  more  than  half  our  American  cities  and 
towns,  are  not  to  be  told  here.  It  is  sufficient  here  and 

and  women  whose  sentiment  expressed  in  their  ballots  may  build  or 
ruin  the  future  of  so  many  of  our  overland  carriers,  reside  upon  these 
same  branch  lines.  Indeed,  one  may  say  that  the  manufacture  of 
sentiment  upon  branch-line  railroads  is  a  business  well  worth  the 
attention  of  a  keen  traffic-man.  For  it  may  be  just  that  very  amount  of 
sentiment  that  might  swing  the  balance  for  or  against  a  railroad." 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  145 

now  to  say  that,  save  in  the  South  and  the  extreme 
West,  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  formidable  competitor  of 
the  trolley.  But  as  the  jitney  of  the  city  has  dimin- 
ished, its  brother  of  the  country  roads  has  grown.  And 
the  various  regulating  boards,  city  and  county,  while 
generally  looking  upon  the  city  boy  with  a  forbidding 
look,  have  given  nothing  but  encouraging  glances  to 
his  country  brother. 

On  a  certain  day  last  summer,  I  rode  with  Henry 
Sewall  from  Frederick,  Maryland,  to  Baltimore. 
Henry  is  a  coffee-colored  Negro  of  unusually  prepos- 
sessing dress  and  manner.  He  owns  a  seven-passenger 
motor  car  of  1916  model  and  a  fairly  popular-priced 
make.  He  keeps  his  car  tuned  up  and  clean. 

I  found  the  two  of  them  in  the  main  street  of  Fred- 
erick—  just  in  front  of  one  of  the  town's  most  popular 
hostelries.  The  car  bore  a  placard  stating  that  it 
would  leave  for  Baltimore,  forty-six  miles  distant,  at 
five  o'clock  and  that  the  one-way  fare  for  the  journey 
would  be  $1.50.  I  asked  Henry  Sewall  the  time  that 
I  might  reasonably  expect  to  be  at  my  hotel  in  Balti- 
more. He  showed  his  even  white  teeth  as  he  replied: 

*  'Fore  seven  'clock,  suh.  Ah've  been  known  to  do 
it  in  less." 

I  glanced  at  the  time  card  of  the  railroad  that  con- 
nects Frederick  with  Baltimore.  It  is  a  particularly 
good  railroad,  yet  the  afternoon  train  that  it  runs  over 
the  "  old  main  line,"  as  it  calls  that  branch,  left  Fred- 
erick at  4:  50  P.M.  and  did  not  arrive  at  a  station,  some 
ten  "  squares  "  —  one  never  says  "  blocks  "  in  Baltimore 
—  from  my  hotel,  until  7 : 30.  Mileage  and  fare  were 


146  The  Railroad  Problem 

practically  the  same  as  Henry  Sewall's,  but  the  train 
made  numerous  intermediate  stops.  And  Henry 
announced,  with  the  Negro's  love  of  pomp  and 
regulation,  that  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Maryland 
would  not  permit  him  to  stop  and  pick  up  passengers 
between  Frederick  and  Baltimore  —  his  license  with  the 
imposing  state  seal  in  its  corner  especially  forbade  that. 

I  rode  with  Henry.  The  softness  and  the  sunshine 
of  a  perfect  day  in  early  summer,  the  knowledge  that 
the  old  National  Pike  over  which  we  were  to  travel 
was  in  the  pink  of  condition,  that  we  were  to  pass  across 
the  Stone  Jug  bridge  and  through  the  fascinating  towns 
of  Newmarket  and  Ellicott  City  was  too  much  to  be 
forsworn.  And  we  had  a  glorious  ride  —  the  car  filled 
and  but  one  stop  of  ten  minutes  at  the  delightful 
Ellicott  City,  where  Henry  changed  tires.  But  even 
with  this  detention  I  was  at  my  hotel  promptly  at  seven 
o'clock. 

Henry  makes  the  round  trip  from  Baltimore  to 
Frederick  each  day  of  the  week,  excepting  Sundays, 
when  his  car  is  for  general  charter.  Even  on  rainy  days 
Henry's  car  is  almost  invariably  filled — he  manages  to 
carry  eight  passengers  besides  himself.  With  a  maxi- 
mum earning  capacity  of  twenty-four  dollars  a  day  and 
an  average  of  only  a  very  little  less,  Henry  is  earning  a 
very  good  living  for  himself,  even  when  he  figures  on 
the  cost,  the  wear  and  tear,  and  the  depreciation  of  an 
automobile  which  is  being  driven  about  100  miles  a  day. 

There  are  many  Henry  Sewalls  in  and  around  Balti- 
more. Maryland  today  claims  to  have  the  finest  high- 
roads of  any  state  in  the  Union.  The  cross-country 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  147 

jitney  busses  have  not  been  slow  to  take  advantage  of 
this.  They  start  at  regularly  appointed  hours  from  a 
popular-priced  hotel  in  the  heart  of  the  city  and  the 
hours  of  their  arrival  and  departure  are  as  carefully 
advertised  and  as  carefully  followed  as  those  of  a  steam 
railroad.  When  they  are  all  starting  out  in  the  morn- 
ing, the  scene  is  as  brisk  and  gay  as  it  must  have  been 
at  Barnum's  Hotel  in  the  Baltimore  of  nearly  a  century 
ago,  when,  with  much  ado  and  gay  confusion,  the 
coaches  set  out  upon  the  post  roads  —  for  Frederick, 
for  York,  for  Harrisburg,  for  Philadelphia,  and  for 
Washington. 

Yet  the  railroads  that  radiate  from  Baltimore  have 
not  seen  fit  to  fight  these  newcomers  for  the  traffic  of 
from  ten  to  fifty  miles  outside  the  city.  They  have 
made  particularly  serious  inroads  upon  the  earnings  of 
one  of  the  smaller  of  these  steam  lines,  which  ordi- 
narily derives  a  very  good  share  of  its  earnings  from 
its  suburban  traffic.  There  are  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons for  the  big  railroads  to  hold  their  peace.  Take 
Henry  Sewall's  opposition.  The  direct  rail  route  to 
Frederick  from  Baltimore  is  a  line  exempted  from 
through  passenger  trains  and  very  largely  given  over 
to  a  vast  tonnage  of  through  freight.  The  officers  of 
the  road  have  from  time  to  time  given  thought  to  the 
possibilities  of  increasing  the  local  passenger  service  on 
that  very  line.  To  do  so,  however,  on  the  generous 
plans  that  they  had  outlined  among  themselves  would 
have  meant  either  one  of  two  things — >  either  they 
would  seriously  have  incommoded  the  movement  of  the 
through  freight  —  which  is  a  railroad's  largest  source 


148  The  Railroad  Problem 

of  profit — or  else  they  would  have  been  compelled  to 
add  a  third  track  to  that  particular  line.  The  income 
from  the  increased  local  passenger  service  would  not 
justify  the  expense  in  either  of  these  cases.  Therefore 
this  railroad  can  afford  to  be  Indifferent  to  Henry 
Sewall  and  his  gasoline  coach. 

Yet  there  is  a  broader  way  of  looking  at  it.  Out 
from  my  old  home  town  in  northern  New  York  there 
radiates  today  nearly  as  complete  a  system  of  motor-bus 
routes  as  that  from  Baltimore.  We  have  almost  300 
miles  of  superb  new  state  highways  in  Jefferson  County. 
And  Watertown  —  our  county  seat — is  a  hub  of  no 
small  traffic  wheel.  These  busses,  despite  the  arduous 
winters  of  the  North  Country — Watertown  is  reputed 
to  have  but  three  seasons:  winter  and  July  and  August 
—  keep  going  nearly  the  entire  year  round.  They  are 
of  course  patronized  all  that  time.  And  the  railroad 
which  serves  almost  the  entire  North  Country  loses 
much  local  passenger  traffic  as  a  result  of  them.  It  is 
the  same  system  that  I  have  just  quoted  as  being  the 
largest  taxpayer  in  the  state  of  New  York  —  the  chief 
contributor  to  its  $100,000,000  system  of  highways. 
Yet  it,  too,  is  not  fighting  these  jitney  busses.  On  the 
contrary,  one  of  its  high  traffic  officers  said  to  me  just 
the  other  day: 

"We  realize  that  the  automobile  is  hardly  apt  to  be 
a  permanent  competitive  factor  in  any  long  distance 
passenger  traffic  —  and  that  is  the  only  passenger  traffic 
in  which  we  see  any  real  profit.  And  there  is  a  still 
bigger  way  of  looking  at  it.  Every  automobile  that 
goes  into  the  sections  of  New  York  which  we  serve 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  149 

means  a  movement  of  high-grade  freight — the  tires, 
the  gasoline,  the  oils,  the  innumerable  accessories  that 
it  constantly  demands,  mean  more  freight.  Besides 
this,  if  the  automobile  is  developing  the  man  on  the 
farm  or  in  the  little  village  we  shall,  in  the  long  run, 
profit.  The  development  of  the  entire  state  of  New 
York  means  the  development  of  our  railroad." 

And  that  is  a  platform  on  which  no  business  —  no 
matter  how  large  or  how  small  it  is  —  can  ever  lose. 

But  is  there  not  a  possibility  that  the  railroad  can 
regain  some  of  the  traffic  that  it  has  lost,  temporarily 
at  least,  to  the  motor  car?  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
derided  branch  line  may  not  be  changed  from  a  with- 
ered arm  into  a  growing  one?  Amputation  has  some- 
times proved  effective.  There  is  many  and  many  a 
branch-line  railroad,  which  probably  should  never  have 
been  built  in  the  first  place,  whose  owners  have  been 
wise  enough  to  abandon  it  and  to  pull  up  the  rails.  Old 
iron  has  a  genuine  market  value.  Go  back  with  me 
once  again  to  the  time  when  the  trolley  began  to  be  a 
long-distance  affair.  We  have  seen  already  how  a  good 
many  steam  railroad  men  looked  with  apprehension 
upon  their  branch  lines  —  and  with  good  cause. 

For  a  time  it  did  look  as  if  the  electric  railroad  might 
become  a  genuine  competitor  of  the  steam  railroad.  A 
good  many  interesting  fantasies  of  that  sort  got  into 
print.  An  enterprising  interurban  trolley  company  over 
in  Illinois  put  on  trolley-sleeping  cars  between  St.  Louis 
and  Springfield  and  St.  Louis  and  Peoria.  It  was  said 
that  the  day  was  coming  when  a  man  would  ride  in  a 


150  The  Railroad  Problem 

trolley  limited  all  the  way  from  Chicago  to  New  York 
—  a  real  train,  with  sleeping  cars  and  dining  cars  and 
Negro  porters  and  manicures  and  an  observation  plat- 
form. The  Utica  (New  York)  Chamber  of  Commerce 
got  tremendously  excited  over  the  matter  and  went  all 
the  way  out  to  St.  Louis  and  back  in  a  chartered  car 
taken  right  out  of  the  press  of  traffic  in  Genesee  Street. 

But  the  trolley,  as  we  have  seen,  has  not  proved  a 
competitor  of  the  steam  railroad.  It  has  become  in 
almost  every  instance  a  feeder  and  as  such  is  a  valuable 
economic  factor  in  the  transportation  situation. 
There  have  been  no  more  sleeping  cars  placed  on  trol- 
ley routes,  but  a  little  time  ago  I  found  a  Canadian 
Pacific  box  car  on  the  shores  of  Keuka  Lake,  more  than 
ten  miles  distant  from  the  nearest  steam  railroad.  A 
trolley  road  had  placed  it  there,  on  a  farmer's  private 
siding.  And  he  was  packing  it  full  of  grapes  —  grapes 
to  go  overseas  from  some  big  Canadian  port  upon  the 
Atlantic. 

Such  possibilities  of  the  trolley  line  to  the  steam 
railroad  point  to  similar  feeding  possibilities  of  the 
automobile  —  but  of  these  very  much  more  in  their 
proper  time  and  places.  Let  us  still  continue  to  study 
the  possibilities  of  the  branch  line. 

The  other  day  I  chanced  to  travel  upon  a  certain 
small  brisk  railroad  that  runs  across  a  middle  western 
state.  In  my  lap  was  a  time  card  of  that  line  and  I 
was  idly  following  it  as  we  went  upon  our  way.  Half- 
way down  the  long  column  of  town-names,  I  saw  a 
change.  In  other  days  a  passenger  for  the  enterprising 
county  shiretown  of  Caliph  had  been  compelled  to 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  isi 

alight  at  the  small  junction  point  known  as  East  Caliph 
and  there  take  a  very  small  and  very  dirty  little  train 
for  three  miles,  which  finally  left  him  at  a  clump  of 
willows  by  a  brookside  —  a  full  dozen  hot  and  dusty 
blocks  from  the  courthouse  square  which  marks  the 
geographical  and  commercial  center  of  Caliph. 

That  branch-line  train  has  disappeared.  In  its  place 
a  line  on  a  time  card  reads  "  automobile  service  to 
Caliph,"  and  at  the  junction  I  saw  a  seven-passenger 
touring  car  with  the  initials  of  the  railroad  upon  its 
tonneau  doors.  The  motor  bus  takes  you  to  the  door 
of  Caliph's  chief  hotel,  which  faces  that  same  court- 
house square.  The  branch  is  unused,  except  for  occa- 
sional switching.  There  is  no  expense  of  keeping  it  up 
to  the  requirements  of  passenger  traffic,  nor  of  main- 
taining a  passenger  station.  The  hotel  serves  as  this 
last  and  at  far  less  expense.  And  the  cost  of  running 
the  automobile  over  three  miles  of  excellent  highway 
is  far  cheaper  than  that  of  running  a  railroad  train. 
The  chauffeur  is  an  entirely  competent  conductor  and 
ticket-taker.  And  between  passenger  runs  he  can  be 
used  to  carry  the  express  and  baggage  on  a  motor  truck. 
His  own  opportunities  for  development  are  fairly 
generous. 

Recently  the  automobile  has  been  placed  upon  the 
railroad  rails  —  with  astonishing  results  as  to  both  effi- 
ciency and  economy.  I  saw  one  of  these,  not  long  ago, 
working  on  a  small  railroad  running  from  the  Columbia 
River  up  to  the  base  of  Mount  Hood.  The  superinten- 
dent of  that  railroad  —  he  likewise  was  its  agent,  con- 


152  The  Railroad  Problem 

ductor,  dispatcher,  engineering  expert,  and  chief  traffic 
solicitor  —  had  purchased  a  large  "rubberneck"  auto- 
mobile, had  substituted  railroad  flange  wheels  for  the 
rubber-tired  highway  wheels,  and  was  not  only  saving 
money  for  his  property  but  also  giving  much  pleasure 
to  his  patrons.  A  ride  in  a  dirty,  antiquated,  second- 
hand coach  behind  a  smoky,  cindery  locomotive  is 
hardly  to  be  compared  with  one  in  a  clean,  swift  auto- 
mobile, riding  in  the  smooth  ease  of  steel  rails.  So 
successful  had  the  experiment  proven  that  he  was  having 
a  closed  automobile  made  for  winter  service  upon  his 
railroad  —  with  a  tiny  compartment  for  the  baggage, 
the  mail,  and  the  express. 

A  series  of  interesting  experiments  conducted  by  the 
army  along  the  Mexican  border  recently  showed  an- 
other way  in  which  the  motor  truck  could  well  be  made 
an  active  ally  and  agent  of  the  railroad.  Special  T-rail 
wheel  flanges  were  designed  to  fit  outside  of  the  heavy 
rubber  tires  that  carry  the  cars  over  highways.  It  is 
the  work  of  a  very  few  minutes  to  slip  these  steel 
flanges  on  or  off  the  wheels.  Which  means  that  the 
motor  truck  may  follow  the  lines  of  the  railroad  as  far 
as  it  leads,  giving  many  more  miles  of  performance  for 
each  gallon  of  gasoline  consumed;  and  then,  when  the 
rails  end  in  the  sand  and  sagebrush,  may  strike  off  for 
itself  across  the  country  in  any  direction. 

These  ideas  may  seem  visionary — advanced,  per- 
haps. They  are  nothing  of  the  kind.  They  are  new, 
but  they  do  represent  the  practical  working  of  the 
great  opportunity  in  branch-line  railroading.  And  the 
gasoline-propelled  unit  railroad  coach  is  no  longer  vi- 


THE  MOTOR-CAR  UPON  THE  STEEL  HIGHWAY 
How  much  better  this  than  the  smoky,  dirty  cars  of  yester-year! 


THE  ADAPTABLE  MOTOR-TRACTOR 

Equipped  with  flange  wheels  and  hitched  to  a  flat-car  train  on  a  logging  railroad, 
it   makes   a   bully   motor-truck   of   real   hauling   capacity. 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  153 

sionary,  no  longer  even  to  be  classed  as  a  mere  novelty. 
This  adaptation  of  the  automobile  idea  in  the  form  of 
a  single  gasoline-propelled  car,  which  combines  baggage 
and  express  and  smoking  and  day-coach  compartments 
in  an  efficient  compactness,  has  been  a  tremendous  help 
to  many  railroads  on  their  branch-line  problems. 
These  cars  require  a  crew  of  but  three  men  against  a 
minimum  crew  of  five  men  on  the  old-style  steam  train 
for  branch-line  service.  They  are  clean  and  they  are 
fast.  And  they  have  aided  many  railroads  to  increase 
their  branch-line  operation  without  increasing  their 
operating  cost  —  in  many  cases  making  actual  savings. 
It  is  well  for  the  big  men  who  own  and  operate  the 
steam  railroad  to  remember  that  no  matter  how  rapid 
may  be  the  spread  of  the  automobile  or  how  permanent 
its  extensive  use,  there  will  always  be  a  large  class  of 
travel-hungry  folk  who  must  ride  upon  some  form  of 
railroad.  There  are  people  who,  if  financially  capable 
of  owning  a  car,  are  incapable  of  running  it,  and  cannot 
afford  a  chauffeur.  And  the  difficulties  of  owning  an 
automobile  increase  greatly  when  one  comes  to  live  in 
the  larger  cities.  The  local  line  situation  is  not  nearly 
as  bad  as  it  looks  at  first  glimpse.  There  is  a  business 
for  it  if  the  railroader  will  devote  himself  carefully  to 
its  cultivation.  Remember  that  in  many  cases  he  has 
sought  so  long  for  the  larger  profits  of  long-distance 
business  between  the  big  cities  that  he  has  rather  over- 
looked the  smaller,  sure  profits  of  the  local  lines.  And 
it  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  railroad  of  the  Middle 
West  which  concededly  maintains  the  finest  local  service 
is  the  one  road  that  made  no  active  appearance  in  a 


154  The  Railroad  Problem 

recent  hearing  in  which  the  roads  of  its  territory  sought 
increased  passenger  rates.  Despite  the  fact  that  many 
of  its  competitors  have  said  that  its  local  service  is 
expensive  and  generous  to  an  unwarranted  degree,  it 
found  that  its  net  profits  on  its  passenger  earnings  were 
proportionately  higher  than  those  on  its  freight ! 

This  road  runs  parlor  cars  upon  almost  all  of  its 
local  trains,  sleeping  cars  where  there  is  even  a  possi- 
bility of  their  getting  traffic.  A  big  eastern  road  has 
just  begun  to  follow  this  parlor-car  practice.  It  builds 
and  maintains  its  own  cars.  There  are  no  expensive 
patent  rights  to  be  secured  in  the  making  of  a  parlor 
car.  A  double  row  of  comfortable  wicker  or  uphol- 
stered chairs,  a  carpet,  lavatory  facilities,  and  a  good- 
humored  porter  will  do  the  trick.  And  the  train  and 
the  road  upon  which  such  a  simple,  cleanly  car  travels 
at  once  gains  a  new  prestige.  In  an  age  when  travel 
demands  a  private  bath  with  every  hotel  room,  a  mani- 
cure with  the  haircut,  and  a  taxicab  to  and  from  the 
station,  a  parlor  car  is  more  of  a  necessity  than  a  luxury. 
And  it  is  surprising  to  notice  its  earning  possibilities 
upon  even  the  simplest  of  branch  lines  or  on  one  local 
train. 

One  thing  more  —  a  rather  intimately  related  thing, 
if  you  please.  We  have  spoken  of  the  railroad  automo- 
bile which  runs  up  the  public  highway  from  East  Caliph 
to  Caliph  and  return.  Let  us  consider  that  particular 
form  of  transportation  service  of  the  automobile  in 
still  another  light.  A  man  who  went  up  into  one  of  the 
great  national  parks  on  the  very  backbone  of  the  United 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  155 

States  this  last  summer  was  tremendously  impressed 
with  both  the  beauty  and  the  accessibility  of  the  place. 
The  one  thing  was  supplemental  to  the  other.  This 
man  was  impressed  by  still  another  thing,  however. 

The  railroad  which  had  brought  him  to  a  certain  fine 
and  growing  city  at  the  base  of  the  mountains  —  a  most 
excellent  and  well-operated  railroad  it  chanced  to  be  — 
had  a  branch  line  which  ran  much  closer  to  the  national 
park,  upon  which  it  was  spending  many  thousands  of 
dollars  in  advertising,  both  generously  and  intelli- 
gently. In  other  days  park  visitors  took  this  branch  — 
four-in-hands  or  carriages  from  its  terminal  for  the 
thirty-mile  run  up  through  the  canyon  and  into  the 
heart  of  the  park.  With  the  coming  of  the  automobile 
all  this  was  changed.  The  motor  car  quickly  sup- 
planted the  old-time  carriages,  even  the  four-in-hands 
themselves.  In  a  short  time  it  was  running  from  the 
big  city  below  the  base  of  the  mountains  and  the  rail- 
road was  taking  off  one  of  its  two  daily  trains  upon  the 
branch  in  each  direction.  Then,  after  only  a  little 
longer  time,  it  was  making  a  truce  with  its  new  com- 
petitor—  so  that  its  through  tickets  might  be  used,  in 
one  direction  at  least,  upon  the  motor  cars. 

An  excellent  idea,  you  say.  Perhaps.  But  I  know  a 
better  one. 

This  same  man  rode  last  summer  upon  one  of  those 
motor  vehicles  all  the  way  from  the  big  city  up  into 
the  heart  of  the  park — some  seventy  miles  all  told. 
He  is  a  man  who  owns  an  excellent  touring  car  at  his 
home  —  back  East.  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why 
he  did  not  enjoy  this  run  out  in  the  West.  For  the  car 


156  The  Railroad  Problem 

on  which  he  rode  was  a  truck-chassis  upon  which  had 
been  builded  a  cross-seat  body,  with  accommodations 
for  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  passengers.  It  was  the  only 
practical  way  in  which  a  motor  vehicle  could  be  built  in 
order  to  compete  with  the  railroad  at  its  established 
rates  of  fare.  Yet  he  did  not  enjoy  the  run,  at  least 
not  until  they  were  across  the  long  forty-mile  stretch  of 
plains  and  up  into  the  foothills  of  the  Rockies.  And 
then  he  and  his  were  a  little  too  tired  by  the  slow,  if 
steady,  progress  of  the  low-geared  truck-chassis,  to 
really  have  the  keenest  enjoyment  of  the  glorious  park 
entrance. 

The  point  of  all  this  is  that  the  railroad  which  owns 
and  operates  that  branch  line  ought  also  to  own  those 
excellently  rnanaged  motor  routes  that  radiate  from  its 
terminals  through  one  of  the  loveliest  and  most  rapidly 
growing  playgrounds  in  all  western  America  —  perhaps 
own  and  operate  a  chain  of  its  own  hotels  as  well.  It 
would  gain  not  only  prestige  by  so  doing,  but  traffic  as 
well.  For  back  of  its  own  advertising  of  the  charms 
of  that  superior  place  it  would  set  the  guaranty  of  its 
name,  of  its  long-established  reputation  for  handling 
passengers  well. 

There  are  plenty  of  places  in  the  United  States  where 
this  may  be  done  —  and  done  today.  The  Southern 
Pacific  is  widely  advertising  a  motor  route  through  the 
Apache  country  and  the  Salt  River  valley  of  Arizona 
and  in  connection  with  its  southern  main  stem  between 
El  Paso  and  Los  Angeles.  The  success  of  its  radical 
traffic  step  on  its  part  may  yet  lead  it  to  a  correlation 
with  its  service  of  many  wonderful  motor  runs  over 


Iron  Horse  and  Gas  Buggy  157 

those  superb  roads  of  California,  as  well.  Similar 
opportunities  are  open  to  the  Burlington,  the  Milwau- 
kee, the  Union  Pacific,  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande,  the 
Great  Northern  —  all  of  them  railroads  not  ordinarily 
blind  to  traffic  opportunities  of  any  sort  whatsoever. 

In  the  East,  the  Boston  and  Maine,  the  Maine  Cen- 
tral, and  the  Central  Vermont  railroads  are  confronted 
with  dozens  of  such  possibilities  of  developing  through 
supplemental  motor  routes  in  the  White  Mountains  and 
the  Green  Mountains;  the  Adirondacks,  the  Catskills, 
and  the  Alleghenies  should  be  filled  with  opportunities 
for  the  Delaware  and  Hudson,  the  New  York  Central, 
the  Pennsylvania,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  and  the 
Chesapeake  and  Ohio  railroads.  To  establish  such 
routes  only  needs  a  few  things  —  the  detailed  and  de- 
tached attention  of  an  alert  young  traffic  man,  with  his 
nose  well  above  conventions  and  precedents,  working 
with  a  man  schooled  in  the  operation  of  motor  vehicles 
upon  a  large  scale.  To  this  partnership  add  a  compe- 
tent advertising  man,  give  a  little  money  at  the  outset 
—  and  the  trick  will  be  turned.  And  I  am  confident 
that  if  it  be  well  turned,  the  railroad  will  never  wish 
to  turn  back  again. 


CHAPTER  X 

MORE  RAILROAD  OPPORTUNITY 

T  ET  us  now  bring  the  motor  truck  into  considera- 
••— '  tion.  So  far  we  have  not  taken  it  into  our  plans. 
And  yet  it  is  the  phase  of  automobile  competition 
that  some  railroad  men  frankly  confess  puzzles  them 
the  most.  For  it  hits  close  to  the  source  of  their  largest 
revenue  —  the  earnings  from  the  freight.  It  is  a  trans- 
port of  things  rather  than  of  men.  But  that  is  no 
fundamental  reason  why  it  should  not  become  as  much 
an  ally  and  a  feeder  of  the  railroad — as  the  passenger 
automobile,  for  instance. 

The  possibilities  of  the  motor  truck,  under  the  de- 
velopment of  good  roads,  which  already  has  grid- 
ironed  the  two  coastal  fronts  of  the  United  States  with 
improved  highways  and  placed  them  here  and  there 
and  everywhere  throughout  the  interior,  are  large.  A 
wholesale  meat  vendor  in  Philadelphia  has  used  motor 
trucks  with  specially  designed  refrigerator  bodies  to 
distribute  his  wares  not  only  through  the  immediate 
suburban  territory  in  southeastern  Pennsylvania  and 
in  adjacent  New  Jersey,  but  right  up  to  the  very  doors 
of  New  York  City,  itself.  Florists,  whose  greenhouses 
dot  the  Illinois  prairies  for  fifty  miles  roundabout  Chi- 
cago, today  are  using  fleets  of  these  vehicles  to  bring 
their  wares  at  top  speed  either  to  suburban  railroad 

158 


WHEN  FREIGrT 

The  past  two  winters  have  seen  the  great  black-breasted  yards  of  all  our  American  rail 
the  yards  for  days  and  weeks  and  months  at  a  time  trying  to  relieve  the  congestion.  This  t 
of  many,  many  others. 


•'  ON  THE  MOVE 

s  congested  with  traffic  almost  to  the  breaking  point.      Executives,   high  and   low,   have   lived   in 

inal  yard  of  the  West  Shore  Railroad  at  Weehawken,   N.  J.,  opposite  New  York  City,  is  typical 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  159 

stations  or  down  into  the  heart  of  the  city  itself — al- 
though this  last  is  somewhat  unsatisfactory  owing  to 
the  crowded  streets  of  downtown  Chicago.  The  mo- 
tor truck  is  coming  into  increasing  use  in  Oregon  and 
in  Washington  and  in  California.  It  is  proving  a  dis- 
turbing competitor  to  the  small  railroads  upon  the 
larger  islands  of  the  Hawaiian  group.  And  a  com- 
pany has  just  been  formed  to  introduce  a  motor-truck 
freight  service  to  certain  railroadless  parts  of  China  — 
which  are  supplied  with  ancient  but  very  passable  high- 
roads. 

Come  back  to  the  United  States.  Last  winter,  when 
the  railroads  of  the  East  struggled  under  a  perfect 
flood  tide  of  freight,  due  to  the  rush  of  war  muni- 
tions toward  the  seaboard  for  transshipment,  they  were 
compelled  to  issue  embargoes.  That  means,  plainly 
speaking,  that  for  days  and  sometimes  weeks  at  a  time 
they  were  compelled  to  refuse  to  accept  or  deliver  many 
classes  of  freight.  They  gave  their  first  efforts  to  mov- 
ing coal  and  milk  and  the  other  vital  necessities  for  the 
towns  which  they  served  with  the  rigors  of  an  un- 
usually hard  winter  to  combat.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  the  embargoes  were  all  raised  —  even  with  all 
the  big  operating  men  in  the  East  working  from  eigh- 
teen to  twenty  hours  out  of  twenty- four  —  in  many 
cases  living  in  their  private  cars  set  in  the  heart  of  the 
most  congested  yards. 

Bridgeport  was  one  of  the  towns  that  was  hardest 
hit  by  these  embargoes.  While  it  is  served  by  a  sin- 
gle railroad,  it  is  upon  the  main  stem  of  that  road  — 
a  system  that  is  reputed  to  be  well  equipped  for  the 


160  The  Railroad  Problem 

handling  of  high-grade  freight.  But  the  conditions  were 
unusual,  to  say  the  least.  Bridgeport  found  herself 
transformed  almost  overnight  from  a  brisk  and  average 
Connecticut  manufacturing  town  into  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  munition  centers.  Prosperity  hit  her  between 
the  eyes.  For  a  time  people  slept  all  night  in  the 
railroad  station  because  they  had  nowhere  else  to  go. 
And  the  fine  new  county  almshouse  was  hurriedly  trans- 
formed into  a  huge  hotel.  Bridgeport  swarmed  with 
people.  A  single  munition  factory  there  employed 
close  to  20,000  people. 

The  railroad,  long  since  hemmed  in  by  the  growing 
factory  town,  could  not  rebuild  its  yards  overnight. 
Neither  could  it  look  for  relief  toward  the  other  Con- 
necticut towns.  They,  too,  were  making  munitions  and 
were  in  turn  congested.  But  by  far  the  worst  conges- 
tion of  all  was  at  Bridgeport.  The  railroad  people 
worked  unceasingly,  but  for  a  time  to  apparently  no 
purpose.  And  for  a  time  it  was  almost  impossible 
for  a  package  to  reach  Bridgeport  from  New  York 
or  the  West. 

In  this  emergency  the  motor  truck  proved  its  worth. 
It  so  happens  that  there  is  a  factory  in  Bridgeport 
which  manufactures  a  very  heavy  type  of  motor  truck. 
It  put  one  of  these  in  service  between  its  plant  and 
New  York — fifty-six  miles  distant  over  the  well-paved 
historic  Boston  Post  Road.  It  brought  emergency  sup- 
plies of  every  sort  to  the  factory  doors.  So  efficient 
did  it  prove  itself  in  everyday  service  that  a  group 
of  Bridgeport  manufacturers  and  merchants  formed 
themselves  into  a  transportation  company  and  placed 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  161 

other  trucks  in  daily  service  between  their  town  and 
New  York.  And  a  little  later  when  the  New  York 
terminals  became  glutted  with  freight  and  hedged 
about  with  embargoes,  the  manufacturers  of  Bridge- 
port began  having  freight  billed  to  them  at  the  local 
freight  houses  in  Newark.  They  extended  their  motor- 
truck service  to  that  busy  Jersey  town  and  so  saved 
themselves  many  dollars.  When,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  months,  the  congestion  was  removed  and  freight 
conditions  at  Bridgeport  were  normal  once  again,  the 
motor-truck  service  along  the  Post  Road  disappeared. 
It  could  not  compete  with  the  freight  rates  of  the  rail- 
road.1 

1  "  Something  more  than  a  nation-wide  railroad  strike  would  have 
been  required  to  interfere  seriously  with  the  business  of  the  Norton 
Grinding  Company,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  of  the  Halle  Brothers  Com- 
pany, of  Cleveland,  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Company, 
and  some  other  far-sighted  concerns,"  says  a  circular  issued  by  the 
White  Automobile  Company  at  the  time  of  the  strike  crisis  in  August, 
1916.  In  meeting  the  threatened  emergency  of  having  all  freight  ship- 
ments blockaded,  these  companies  outlined  a  new  example  in  industrial 
preparedness. 

"The  Worcester  machinery  makers  and  the  great  Bell  institution 
increased  their  fleets  of  trucks  by  having  the  machines  delivered  overland 
to  avoid  all  chance  of  strike  congestion,  while  the  Cleveland  depart- 
ment store  planned  its  own  transportation  system  between  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  and  the  Sixth  City. 

"  The  situation  confronting  the  Norton  company  was  one  which 
demanded  immediate  action,  and  in  which  normal  methods  were  of  no 
avail.  When  a  general  suspension  of  all  the  ordinary  facilities  for 
moving  goods  seemed  imminent,  the  Norton  company  placed  its  order 
for  three  five-ton  trucks  with  the  Seymour  Automobile  Company,  The 
White  Company's  Worcester  dealer,  and  it  was  stipulated  in  the  con- 
tract that  the  trucks  should  be  delivered  in  Worcester  within  three  days, 
independent  of  railroad  service. 

"  The  trucks  were  shipped  by  boat  from  Cleveland  to  Buffalo,  and 
then  driven  overland  to  Worcester.  The  5OO-mile  journey  was  com- 
pleted in  the  remarkably  short  time  of  forty-eight  hours,  with  a  gasoline 


162  The  Railroad  Problem 

But  its  possibilities  as  a  feeder  are  enormous.  Only 
a  few  days  ago  I  stood  beside  the  desk  of  the  traffic 
vice-president  of  a  big  trunk  line  and  looked  over  his 
shoulder  at  a  huge  map  spread  there.  It  showed  the 
main  line  and  the  branches  of  his  railroad  —  from  all 
these,  stretching,  like  a  fine  moss  upon  an  old  oak,  the 
improved  highroads.  The  mapmaker  had  done  more. 
By  use  of  colors  he  had  shown  the  automobile  stage 
routes  upon  these  roads  —  those  that  carried  freight 
and  those  that  combined  two  or  three  of  these  classes 
of  traffic.  The  vice-president  frankly  confessed  that  he 
was  studying  to  see  what  practical  use  he  could  make 
of  these  feeding  motor  routes. 

It  was  significant  that  the  railroad  should  be  mak- 
ing so  careful  a  study  of  its  new  competitor,  that  it 
should  be  taking  the  first  beginning  steps  to  recognize  it 
not  as  a  competitor  but  rather  as  a  friend  and  an  ally, 
a  feeder  which  eventually  may  be  the  means  of  bring- 
ing much  traffic  to  its  cars.  The  motor  truck  running 
over  a  well-paved  highway  can  easily  reach  a  farm  or 
factory  situated  far  from  the  steel  rails.1  It  may  save 

consumption  of  better  than  eleven  miles  to  a  gallon.  Stops  were  made 
only  for  the  purpose  of  replenishing  the  gasoline  and  oil  supply,  and 
for  meals  for  the  drivers." 

1  "  The  effect  of  the  improvements  wrought  as  the  result  of  the  self- 
propelled  vehicle's  influence  is  already  strikingly  apparent.  When 
Franklin  County,  New  York,  voted  $500,000  in  bonds  to  improve  its 
system  of  roads,  twenty-five  cans  of  milk,  weighing  one  hundred  and 
twenty  pounds  each,  constituted  the  average  two-horse  load.  After  the 
money  raised  by  the  bond  issue  had  been  spent,  motor-trucks  hauled 
fifty  cans  to  the  load.  With  the  sum  of  $28,000  the  twelve-mile  stretch 
of  road  leading  from  Spottsylvania  Court  House  to  Fredericksburg  was 
improved.  In  a  single  year  $14,000  was  saved  in  draying. 

"  The  estimated  cost  of  hauling  the  corn,  wheat,  oats,  potatoes,  cotton, 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  163 

the  construction  of  expensive  and  eventually  unprofit- 
able branch-line  railroads  just  as  the  passenger  automo- 
bile or  motor  bus  has  begun  to  save  the  building  of 
unprofitable  street-car  lines.  If  the  farm  fails  or  the 
factory  burns  down,  never  to  be  rebuilt,  the  railroad 
does  not  find  itself  with  an  expensive  and  utterly  use- 
less branch  line  of  track  upon  its  hands. 

There  is  still  another  great  freight-traffic  opportunity 
for  the  sick  man  of  American  business.  It  lies  in  the 
perfection  and  development  of  a  standard  unit  con- 
tainer. The  idea  is  not,  in  itself,  entirely  new.  A  good 

and  hay  crops  of  the  country  is  annually  $153,000,000.  No  one  knows 
how  much  of  that  vast  sum  could  be  saved  if  motors  were  able  to  ply 
between  the  farm  and  the  railroad  station.  Very  few  cities  have 
compiled  statistics.  Some  light  is  shed  on  the  subject  in  a  report  pre- 
pared by  the  Chicago  municipal  markets  —  not  so  much  on  the  influence 
of  good  roads  as  on  the  reduction  in  haulage  costs,  which  is  effected  by 
self-propelled  vehicles  running  on  fine  pavements.  It  appears  that  it 
costs  eleven  and  one-quarter  cents  to  carry  one  ton  a  mile  by  motor  in 
the  city  of  Chicago,  and  seventeen  and  three-quarter  cents  by  horse. 
The  average  cost  of  delivering  a  package  by  the  department  stores, 
grocery  stores,  and  meat  markets  of  the  city  is  approximately  eight  cents 
by  motor  and  sixteen  cents  by  horse  for  each  mile. 

"  Apply  these  figures  to  the  cities  of  the  entire  country,  and  consider 
further  that  motor-trucks  can  deliver  goods  directly  from  the  farm  to 
the  city  retailer,  and  it  seems  not  unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  cost 
of  living  must  at  least  be  held  stationary,  if  it  is  not  actually  reduced 
by  the  wider  introduction  of  mechanical  road  vehicles.  Surely,  the 
horse  must  eventually  disappear  in  our  towns,  at  least,  if  the  city  con- 
sumer pays  an  average  of  one  dollar  and  ninety  cents  for  vegetables 
which  the  farmer  sells  for  one  dollar;  if  it  costs  more  to  haul  by  horse 
one  hundred  pounds  of  produce  five  miles  from  Chicago  wharves  to 
the  householder  or  the  retail  store  than  to  ship  it  by  boat  from  the 
shores  of  Lake  Michigan  to  Chicago;  if  it  costs  nearly  half  as  much  to 
deliver  a  ton  of  coal  by  horse  from  the  railroad  tracks  to  the  business 
district  of  Chicago  as  it  does  to  ship  it  four  hundred  miles  by  rail  from 
southern  Illinois  to  the  city." — Waldemar  Kaempffert  in  Harper's 
Magazine. 


164  The  Railroad  Problem 

many  men  have  been  studying  for  a  long  time  to  develop 
a  practical  receptacle  that  will  obviate  the  necessity  of 
constantly  handling  and  rehandling  freight — always 
a  great  expense  both  at  terminals  and  at  transfer 
yards.  The  remarkable  development  of  the  auto- 
mobile truck  during  the  past  five  years  has  only  empha- 
sized the  vital  need  of  some  such  universal  container. 

An  ideal  receptacle  of  this  sort  would  be  built  of 
fiber  or  of  steel  —  better  still,  a  combination  of  the 
two.  Such  a  container  would  roughly  approximate  in 
size  the  body  of  a  small  motor  truck.  Two  of  them 
would  fit  comfortably  upon  the  chassis  of  a  large  truck 
—  three  or  four,  upon  the  frame  of  an  electric  car  — 
for  either  city  or  interurban  use.  The  regulation  freight 
car  of  the  steam  railroad  would  then  consist  of  trucks 
and  frame  —  builded  to  receive  from  five  to  seven  of 
the  standard  containers.  These  containers  would  also 
be  able  to  fit  in  the  low  hold  decks  of  a  steamship 
with  a  great  economy  of  room  and  therefore  with  a 
great  efficiency  of  service. 

The  manufacturer  then  would  load  the  containers  in 
his  shipping  room.  Some  of  them  destined  through 
under  seal  to  large  cities,  such  as  New  York  or  Chicago 
or  Philadelphia ;  others,  carrying  a  variety  of  products 
to  small  places,  would  be  addressed  to  recognized  trans- 
fer or  assorting  points.  This  last  method  would  be 
exactly  similar  to  that  employed  by  the  post-office  de- 
partment or  the  express  companies  in  handling  their 
daily  flood  tides  of  small  parcel  traffic.  The  use  of 
the  universal  container  would  be  directed  more  par- 
ticularly, however,  to  heavier  freight,  both  in  individual 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  165 

packages  and  in  bulk.  Coal  or  grain  or  lumber  would 
hardly  be  sent  in  a  container.  It  might  be  possible, 
however,  to  ship  flour  and  sugar  in  the  universal  con- 
tainer, and  entirely  without  the  expense  of  wrappings. 

From  the  manufacturer's  door  —  whether  it  were  at 
street  level,  or  in  a  community  industrial  building  fifteen 
floors  above  the  street — the  container  would  go  to  the 
railroad  frame  car.  By  use  of  small-wheeled  trucks 
or  overhead  tractors  it  would  be  carried  first  to  the 
waiting  chassis  of  the  motor  truck  —  in  case  the  manu- 
facturer was  not  able  to  command  railroad  siding  facili- 
ties for  himself.  The  motor  truck  would  carry  it  to 
the  freight  terminal  —  overhead  crane  would  make 
short  shift  of  loading  the  container  and  its  fellows 
upon  the  frame  car. 

The  rest  of  the  journey  would  be  that  of  ordinary 
freight,  save  that  at  the  destination  the  shipping  process 
would  be  exactly  reversed  —  the  motor  truck  perform- 
ing its  part  of  the  work  again,  if  necessary,  and  the 
container  going  direct  to  the  merchant  or  manufacturer 
with  the  least  possible  delay  and  with  no  expensive  in- 
termediate handlings,  with  their  consequent  labor  ex- 
pense as  well  as  the  possible  danger  from  breakage. 

This  idea  is  not  chimerical.  Also,  it  is  not  inexpen- 
sive. It  requires  much  study  to  work  out  the  details 
and  when  these  have  been  brought  into  practicability 
it  would  require  much  money  for  the  initial  invest- 
ment in  containers.  They  would  have  to  be  built  in 
large  quantities,  in  order  to  justify  the  large  imme- 
diate expense  to  adapt  any  number  of  freight  cars,  ter- 
minals, and  warehouses  to  their  use.  But  as  to  their 


166  The  Railroad  Problem 

efficiency  and  their  ultimate  economy,  few  transporta- 
tion men  who  have  given  much  real  thought  to  the 
subject,  are  in  doubt. 

Such  schemes  quickly  ally  themselves  with  the  entire 
problem  of  terminals. 

"Terminals?'1  you  say,  and  immediately  think  of 
what  we  were  discussing  a  few  minutes  ago  —  the 
Grand  Central  station  and  other  monumental  structures 
of  its  sort.  But  those  were  passenger  terminals.  And 
now  we  have  come  to  the  great  opportunities  to  be 
found  in  the  handling  and  the  development  of  the 
freight. 

Perhaps  you  are  not  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  freight  terminals.  They  are  not  the  impressive  gate- 
ways of  large  cities;  but  in  many,  many  senses  they 
are  the  most  important.  Through  them  pour  the  food- 
stuffs—  the  meats,  the  fish,  the  vegetables,  the  fruits, 
the  milk,  the  clothing,  the  fuel,  the  thousand  and  one 
things,  necessary  for  the  comfort  of  man  and  his  luxury. 
Bar  those  gateways  but  for  a  single  day  and  then  see 
the  panic  that  would  overcome  your  city. 

While  we  were  speaking  of  the  new  Grand  Central 
station  and  the  important  step  it  typified  in  the  economic 
and  efficient  progress  of  our  country,  we  called  atten- 
tion to  the  allied  facilities  that  were  springing  up  round- 
about it — hotels,  clubs,  office  buildings,  auditorium,  all 
of  them  more  or  less  closely  affiliated  with  the  busi- 
ness of  the  great  north  gate  of  a  metropolitan  city. 
Is  there  any  reason  why  the  freight  gateways  should 
not  be  the  housing  places  of  affiliated  industries  —  in- 


THE    BUSH    TERMINAL 
South    Brooklyn,    New   York    City. 


NEW   FREIGHT   TERMINAL  WAREHOUSE   AT   ROCHESTER 

Built  by  the  Buffalo,  Rochester,  &  Pittsburgh  Railway.     A  modern  combination 

of  freight  house  and  storage  warehouse. 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  167 

dustries,  if  you  please,  more  or  less  dependent  upon 
the  rapid  movement  of  either  their  raw  material  or 
their  finished  products?  Suppose  that  the  railroads 
were  ever  to  seek  out  and  solve  that  fascinating  problem 
of  the  universal  unit  container.  Would  not  the  most 
fortunate  manufacturer  be  he  whose  shipping  room, 
his  entire  modern  and  concentrated  factory  as  well, 
was  so  close  to  a  comprehensive  freight  terminal  as  to 
permit  the  handling  of  his  containers,  his  other  freight 
too,  by  means  of  chutes  or  elevators  —  with  even  the 
motor  truck,  to  say  nothing  of  less  modern  forms  of 
city  truckage,  entirely  eliminated? 

There  is,  on  one  of  the  harbor-shores  of  metropoli- 
tan New  York,  a  city  within  a  city.  It  is  located  in 
Brooklyn,  to  be  exact,  and  it  occupies  somewhat  more 
than  a  half-mile  of  waterfront — a  waterfront  cut  into 
long  deep-water  piers,  of  the  most  modern  type  and 
running  far  out  into  the  harbor.  Back  of  these  piers 
and  connected  with  them  by  means  of  an  intricate,  but 
extremely  well-planned  system  of  industrial  railroad, 
rise  many  buildings  of  steel  and  stone  and  concrete, 
almost  all  of  them  built  to  a  single  type  and  differ- 
ing only  in  the  minor  details  of  their  construction.  On 
the  many  floors  of  this  group  of  buildings  are  myriad 
separate  industries,  widely  diverse  as  to  character  and 
product  but  all  of  them  capable  of  concentrated  loca- 
tion. Together  they  employ  many  thousands  of  men 
and  women  and  the  high-grade  freight  which  they  send 
out  each  day  would  pay  a  king's  ransom. 

In  other  days  the  greater  number  of  these  industries 
were  scattered  about  both  Brooklyn  and  the  Manhattan 


168  The  Railroad  Problem 

boroughs  of  New  York.  As  a  rule  they  were  remote 
from  both  freight  houses  and  sidings.  The  freight- 
terminal  situation  of  New  York,  owing  to  the  peculiar 
physical  formation  of  the  city  and  its  segregation  from 
the  mainland  by  several  great  navigable  rivers,  the  up- 
per harbor,  and  the  Sound,  is  most  difficult  of  opera- 
tion. All  the  railroads  find  it  necessary  to  lighter 
their  freight  over  these  navigable  streams,  either 
upon  car-floats  or  in  other  forms  of  vessels.  And,  even 
under  the  most  favorable  operating  conditions  of  light 
freight  traffic,  there  is  constant  danger  of  congestion. 
But  to  a  nianufacturer  situated  on  one  of  the  narrow 
sidestreets  of  either  Manhattan  or  Brooklyn,  the  situ- 
ation was  infinitely  worse.  His  problem  was  to  even 
reach  the  freight  houses  along  the  watersides  of  the 
town  —  a  problem  to  be  imperfectly  solved  by  the  use 
of  trucks.  Fifty  trucks  in  a  narrow  street,  crowding 
and  jostling,  mean  infinite  congestion  and  loss  of  time. 
Add  to  this  the  prima-donna-like  temperament  of  the 
average  truck-driver,  showing  itself  in  constant  and 
protracted  strikes,  and  you  can  see  why  the  manufac- 
turers have  flocked  not  only  to  that  great  industrial 
city  in  South  Brooklyn,  but  to  others  like  it  which 
have  begun  to  spring  up  in  and  around  metropolitan 
New  York.  Not  only  is  the  trucking  expense  entirely 
eliminated  —  the  freight  cars  are  waiting  in  the  great 
community  shipping  rooms  in  the  ground  floor  of  the 
very  factory — but  heat  and  light  and  power  are  alike 
brought  to  a  fixed  and  reasonable  cost.  And  the  new- 
est of  these  manufacturing  buildings  are  fabricated  so 
strongly  that  it  is  both  possible  and  practicable  to  raise 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  169 

a  loaded  box  car  to  any  of  their  floors  —  to  the  manu- 
facturer's individual  shipping  room,  if  you  please. 

Here  is  an  idea  instantly  adaptable  to  the  freight 
terminal  of  any  railroad.  A  remarkably  progressive 
small  railroad — the  Buffalo,  Rochester,  and  Pittsburgh 
—  has  recently  built  a  freight  terminal  of  this  very 
sort  at  Rochester.  And  there  is  hardly  an  important 
city  reached  by  an  important  railroad  that  does  not 
offer  many  opportunities  for  the  development  of  freight 
terminals  of  this  sort,  terminals  which,  like  the  Grand 
Central  station,  would  bring  direct  revenue  to  the  rail- 
road which  built  them.  In  this  hour  when  the  cost 
of  foodstuffs  is  occupying  so  large  a  portion  of  public 
attention,  when  a  large  part  of  the  problem  lies  in 
the  marketing  and  storage  facilities,  or  the  lack  of  them, 
it  might  be  possible  to  develop  the  freight  terminal  as 
both  a  cold-storage  plant  and  a  market.  And  all  of 
this  would  tend  to  bring  additional  revenue  to  the  rail- 
road, as  well  as  to  simplify  greatly,  if  not  to  solve 
entirely,  some  of  the  great  transportation  and  terminal 
problems  which  are  today  troubling  our  cities  and  our 
larger  towns  and  which  are  making  their  food  costs 
mount  rapidly  to  heights  which  the  imagination  has 
heretofore  failed  to  grasp. 

Already  the  residents  of  these  communities  are  tak- 
ing definite  steps  toward  relief.  In  the  city  of  New 
York,  Commissioner  John  J.  Dillon  of  the  state  De- 
partment of  Food  and  Markets  has  proposed  that  the 
state  erect  a  public  wholesale  market  house  for  the 
private  sale  or  auctions  of  foodstuffs  of  every  sort  and 
in  every  quantity.  This  market  would  be  open,  on  equal 


170  The  Railroad  Problem 

terms  and  without  favor  or  prejudice  to  buyers  of 
every  sort.  It  is  believed  that  it  would,  in  every  way, 
tend  to  simplify  the  terminal  handling  of  foodstuffs  and 
in  just  such  measure  help  to  reduce  food  costs  to  the 
ultimate  consumer. 

Commissioner  Dillon  estimates  the  cost  of  such  a 
market  house  at  from  $3 ,000,000  to  $4,000,000.  Owing 
to  a  recent  wave  of  stringent  economy,  upon  certain 
lines,  at  Albany,  this  suggestion  of  his  has  not  been 
looked  upon  with  great  favor  by  the  executive  branch 
of  the  state  government.  Yet  it  is  probable  that  in 
the  long  run  a  state  which  has  not  turned  a  hair  at  a 
recently  voted  appropriation  of  $10,000,000  for  a 
necessary  addition  to  its  park  lands  will  halt  at  a  neces- 
sary appropriation  of  $4,000,000  to  reduce  food  costs 
in  its  largest  city,  even  more  to  provide  similar  food 
stations  in  its  other  large  communities.  We  soon  shall 
see  how  it  has  voted  $150,000,000  for  a  canal  of  little 
or  no  practical  value.  The  suggested  expenditure  for 
market  houses  is  as  nothing  compared  with  that. 

But  before  such  market  houses  can  be  planned  and 
erected  comes  the  opportunity  of  the  railroads  whose 
lines  reach  New  York.  If  they  can  build  such  termi- 
nals, or  even  adapt,  temporarily  at  least,  their  present 
plants  to  meet  such  a  public  and  general  need  they  will 
be  proving  themselves,  in  truth,  public  servants. 

If  I  may  be  permitted  here  and  now  to  enter  a  sotto- 
voce  remark,  it  would  be  that  an  absence  of  some  such 
definite,  modern,  constructive  methods  as  these  —  not 
alone  in  regard  to  food  transportation,  terminal  han- 
dling, storage,  and  marketing,  but  as  to  speculation 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  171 

itself  —  is  going  to  bring  the  United  States  closer  to  a 
practical  and  nation-wide  experiment  in  socialism  than 
the  disturbed  railroad  situation  has  ever  brought  it.  It 
seems  as  if  the  Railroad's  older  brother,  the  steward 
and  purveyor  of  our  great  estate,  was  about  to  fall  ill. 
I  think  that  I  can  see  that  tremulous,  but  stern  nurse, 
Regulation,  turning  her  attention  toward  him.  And 
I  am  quite  sure  that  if  he  does  break  down  at  this  time 
he  is  going  to  know  Regulation  as  the  Railroad  never 
has  known  her. 

All  these  things  are  more  or  less  intimately  related 
to  the  question  of  terminals  —  more  rather  than  less. 
And  they  are  all  most  intimately  related  to  the  question 
of  the  freight-traffic  development  of  the  railroad. 

"  Get  the  terminals,"  were  James  J.  Hill's  repeated 
orders  to  his  lieutenants  in  the  creative  period  of  his 
railroads.  Hill  knew  the  value  of  terminals,  freight 
terminals  in  particular;  he  knew  that  it  took  a  freight 
car  bound  from  east  to  west  or  west  to  east  as  long 
to  go  through  the  city  of  Chicago  as  from  Chicago  to 
St.  Paul  —  400  miles  —  and  that  is  why  he  set  out  to 
get  his  terminals  in  growing  cities  while  the  land  was 
cheap  and  the  getting  was  good.  Hill  had  vision.  He 
was  also  tremendously  practical.  It  was  the  combi- 
nation of  these  qualities  that  made  him  the  master  rail- 
roader of  his  generation. 

There  is  another  form  of  transportation  whose  de- 
velopment always  has  been  and  always  will  be  directly 
connected  with  the  development  of  the  railroads.  I  am 
referring  to  the  use  of  the  inland  waterways  of  the 


172  The  Railroad  Problem 

country  —  not  merely  the  Great  Lakes  which  today 
bear  the  most  highly  developed  commerce  of  any  fresh- 
waterways  in  the  world,  but  our  rivers  and  our  canals. 
With  the  notable  exception  of  the  Great  Lakes,  which 
we  have  just  cited,  we  are  decades  behind  Europe  in 
the  use  of  these  waterways.  And  to  make  a  bad  mat- 
ter worse  Federal  legislation  has  sought  to  penalize 
the  enterprise  of  the  railroads  in  any  attempts  to  de- 
velop the  use  of  the  waterways  in  their  own  interest. 
Just  how  this  came  about  is  a  matter  of  plainly  recorded 
history;  a  story  of  the  attempts  of  certain  ill-advised 
carriers  to  purchase  and  to  strangle  water  lines,  be- 
cause of  the  competition  which  they  offered.  But  the 
railroads  which  operated  the  huge  grain  and  coal  fleets 
on  the  Great  Lakes  were  not  throttling — they  were 
developing.  And  the  success  of  their  example  was 
slowly  but  surely  having  its  effect  on  their  fellows  else- 
where across  the  land. 

Fortunately  the  same  hands  that  make  a  law  may 
repeal  it.  And  the  odious  anti-railroad  provisions  of 
the  navigation  law  that  accompanied  the  opening  of 
the  Panama  Canal  should  be  revoked  at  once.  The 
railroads  should  be  aided  and  encouraged  in  the  devel- 
opment, through  their  capital  and  the  use  of  their 
connecting  land  lines  as  well  as  their  advantageous 
waterfront  terminals  in  almost  all  our  cities,  in  develop- 
ing a  waterborne  traffic.  Such  a  traffic,  devoting  itself 
chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  to  the  lower,  coarser,  and 
slower  moving  grades  of  freight  would  be  a  tremendous 
relief  to  their  rails;  in  the  long  run  probably  saving 
them  huge  capital  expenditures  for  the  construction 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  173 

of  third  and  fourth  tracks  to  relieve  their  overburdened 
double-tracks.  Congestion  on  our  railroads  is  not  al- 
ways a  question  of  overcrowded  terminals. 

Take  that  great,  elaborate,  and  all  but  economically 
useless  ditch  which  the  state  of  New  York  is  just  com- 
pleting from  the  Hudson  River  at  Troy  to  the  foot 
of  Lake  Erie  at  Buffalo  —  the  outgrowth  of  the  once- 
famous  Erie  Canal.  As  a  piece  of  engineering  the  new 
Barge  Canal  is  a  marvel.  Its  locks  are  comparatively 
few,  roomy,  marvels  of  operating  mechanism,  its  fair- 
way is  generous  —  together  these  give  a  water  pathway 
large  enough  for  a  barge  of  2,000  tons  burden.  Two 
thousand  tons  is  roughly  equal  to  forty  modern  freight 
cars  —  a  fair  length  train.  Two  of  these  barges  would 
have  the  tonnage  equivalent  of  a  full-length  modern 
freight  train.  Fifty  of  them  would  be  a  genuine  relief 
to  the  crowded  rails  of  the  New  York  Central's  six 
tracks  from  Albany  to  Buffalo. 

But  the  New  York  Central  is  not  permitted  to  oper- 
ate barges  through  the  new  Erie  Canal  from  Troy  to 
Buffalo.  Oh,  no !  and  for  that  matter,  not  from  New 
York  up  the  waters  of  the  Hudson  to  Troy.  The  Fed- 
eral regulation  takes  care  of  the  waters  of  the  Hudson 
—  and  keeps  them  freight-desolate  —  the  sovereign 
state  of  New  York  prevents  their  passing  through  the 
sacred  portals  of  its  new  $150,000,000  canal.  For, 
truth  to  tell,  the  new  canal  was  designed  for  but  two 
or  three  real  purposes ;  to  keep  the  port  of  Buffalo  from 
falling  into  decay,  to  find  jobs  for  numerous  deserving 
feeders  at  the  public  trough  and  keep  down  the  local 
freight  rates  of  the  New  York  Central,  which  it  paral- 


174  The  Railroad  Problem 

lels  for  its  entire  length.  If  it  succeeds  in  these  things 
—  and  it  probably  will  —  the  men  who  control  the  pres- 
ent destinies  of  the  state  government  will  probably  lose 
no  time  in  worrying  over  the  fact  that  the  canal  is  prac- 
tically completed,  yet  no  boats  of  the  modern  type  for 
which  it  was  builded  have  been  launched  —  or  even 
planned.  For  a  traffic  not  one  one-thousandth  of  that 
at  Panama,  a  canal  of  half  the  size  and  half  the  cost 
has  been  constructed. 

Seneca  Falls  has  been  made  a  port,  and  so  has  Rome 
and  so  has  Holley — and  if  the  citizens  of  these  sleepy 
towns  doubt  this  they  may  go  down  and  see  the  wharves 
and  warehouses,  the  docks  and  levees  which  a  benevo- 
lent state  has  wished  upon  them.  And  even  if  there 
are  no  boats  to  patronize  these  wonderful  establish- 
ments they  are  kept  atrim,  and  throughout  all  the 
watches  of  the  night  brilliantly  alight.  Perhaps  the 
argosy  is  yet  to  plow  the  waters  of  the  Erie !  One 
thing  I  know.  I  traveled  on  a  night  train  on  the  Dela- 
ware and  Hudson  not  so  long  ago  and  chanced  to  see 
the  great  locks  of  the  Champlain  Canal  —  twin  sis- 
ter to  the  new  Erie  —  all  the  distance  ablaze  with  clus- 
ters of  arc  lamps.  Traffic?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  There 
is  no  traffic  upon  the  Champlain  Canal.  And  the  gods 
in  the  high  heavens  must  laugh  aloud  as  they  read  of 
"America  Efficient1*  and  night  after  night  gaze  down 
upon  the  brilliancy  of  those  glaring  lights  upon  the 
unused  lengths  of  the  canals  of  the  state  of  New  York. 

"  One  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars,"  groans 
the  practical  engineer,  "and  the  state  of  New  York 
might  have  had  instead  of  350  miles  of  canals,  1,000 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  175 

miles  of  railroads,  every  mile  of  the  needed  improved 
highways  she  has  been  building,  many  more  beside. 
The  overhead  that  the  freight  will  have  to  pay  going 
through  the  expensive  and  extravagant  new  canal  is 
far  greater  than  that  of  the  best  of  railroads." 

All  of  which  is  perfectly  true.  But,  in  the  words  of 
an  economist  of  another  generation,  it  is  a  condition 
and  not  a  theory  which  confronts  us.  The  canals  have 
been  built — but  no  vessels  have  been  builded  for  them. 
The  waterways  cannot  remain  unused.  The  state  has 
two  ways  by  which  it  may  force  their  use.  It  may  build, 
equip,  and  operate  its  own  barges  and  so  bring  at  once 
a  widespread  experiment  in  government  transportation 
that  seems  almost  foredoomed  to  complete  failure,  or 
it  may  take  steps  to  induce,  not  only  the  New  York 
Central,  but  the  other  railroads  which  link  New  York 
and  Buffalo,  to  build  and  operate  barges  upon  the 
canals.  Remember  that  these  railroads  are  more  than 
merely  links ;  local  freight-carriers  between  New  York 
and  Buffalo.  And  Buffalo,  as  you  probably  know,  is 
one  of  the  larger  of  the  terminals  at  the  base  of  the 
Great  Lakes. 

Each  year  millions  of  bushels  of  grain  —  other 
coarse  freight  as  well  —  find  their  way  to  its  docks  for 
rail  transshipment  to  New  York  or  Boston,  where  in 
turn  they  may  go  into  the  holds  of  vessels  for  trans- 
portation overseas.  The  Erie  Canal  is  as  much  a  link 
as  any  of  these  railroads.  And,  despite  the  fact  that 
the  state  of  New  York  has  been  foolish  enough  to  build 
and  maintain  it  exclusively  from  its  own  treasury,  the 
fact  remains  that  it  is  a  water  avenue  of  national  com- 


176  The  Railroad  Problem 

munication.  A  glance  at  your  atlas  will  satisfy  you 
as  to  that. 

Of  one  thing  the  state  of  New  York  may  be  cer- 
tain. Private  capital  is  not  going  to  build  traffic  upon 
the  Erie  and  the  Champlain  canals  —  particularly  in 
view  of  the  legislation  which  tends  to  discourage,  if 
not  actually  to  prevent,  a  company  of  any  real  size 
or  influence  operating  upon  the  canal.  The  tendency 
of  today  is  entirely  toward  centralization  and  consoli- 
dation. And  the  small  independent  transportation  com- 
pany, deprived  of  feeding  traffic  and  adequate  joint  or 
independent  terminals  has  a  hard  shift  for  existence. 

I  have  dilated  upon  the  New  York  canals  because 
they  are  typical  of  the  river  opportunities  that  await 
the  railroad  throughout  the  rest  of  the  country.  You 
think  of  the  old-time  river  boat  —  you  still  can  see  a 
few  of  them  rubbing  their  blunt  noses  against  the  levees 
at  New  Orleans  or  Memphis  or  St.  Louis  or  Pitts- 
burgh—  and  you  laugh  at  me.  I  might  reply  by  call- 
ing your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  tonnage  of  the 
port  of  Pittsburgh,  which  moves  entirely  on  the  muddy 
rivers  that  serve  it,  is  in  excess  of  the  tonnage  of  many 
of  the  greatest  and  most  famous  seaports  in  the  world 
—  Liverpool  to  make  a  shining  comparison.  And  as 
for  the  river  steamboat  —  it  is  capable  of  infinite  de- 
velopment, of  transformation  from  the  gaudy  and  in- 
efficient carrier  of  ante-bellum  days  into  a  mighty 
freight-hauler  of  today.  The  Great  Lakes  have  wit- 
nessed a  complete  transformation  of  the  type  of  freight 
vessel  upon  their  waters.  The  genius  that  effected 
the  revolution  of  their  naval  architecture  is  available 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  177 

for  the  development  of  the  river  craft  of  the  United 
States. 

Need  more  be  said?  The  opportunity  awaits.  Pre- 
ceded by  the  necessary  repeal  legislation,  to  which  I 
have  already  referred,  it  is,  at  the  least,  among  the 
very  largest  of  the  opportunities  that  today  await  the 
sick  man  of  American  business. 

Perhaps  by  this  time  you  are  beginning  to  be  genu- 
inely interested  in  the  opportunity  for  the  development 
of  the  freight  traffic  of  the  railroad.  It  is  not  entirely 
an  opportunity  of  the  operating  or  the  engineering  de- 
partments. Indeed,  at  the  present  time  the  greatest 
activities  of  the  traffic-soliciting  forces  of  the  railroad 
are  given  to  its  larger  customers  —  patrons  whose  ship- 
ments run  in  carload,  if  not  in  trainload  lots.  The  un- 
developed field  of  freight  opportunity  for  the  railroad 
is  the  smaller  patron  —  the  man  who  ships  "less  than 
carload,"  but  whose  traffic  fostered  and  increased  would 
mean  trainloads  by  the  dozens,  by  the  hundreds,  by  the 
thousands.  The  railroads,  through  their  industrial  de- 
partments already  have  begun  to  accomplish  much  along 
these  lines.  One  big  road  —  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  — 
has  begun,  on  a  very  large  scale,  to  make  an  intensive 
study  of  the  resources  of  the  territory  which  it  occu- 
pies. It  sends  a  corps  of  its  investigators  —  college- 
trained  men,  all  of  them,  into  a  single  small  city  and 
keeps  them  there  for  one  or  two  or  three  weeks.  When 
they  are  done  with  both  this  field  work  and  the  review 
of  it  back  at  headquarters,  the  road  has  in  its  archives 
at  Baltimore  a  book  of  100  pages  or  more  which  is  a 
complete  record  of  that  city,  not  alone  industrially,  but 


178  The  Railroad  Problem 

socially  and  historically  as  well.  And  if  the  town  is 
clamorous  for  a  new  depot  —  most  towns  are  —  a  study 
of  this  book  will  do  much  toward  giving  the  answer. 
It  may  show  that  it  finally  is  entitled  to  a  new  pas- 
senger gateway;  and  it  may  show  also  that  it  is  care- 
less about  its  pavements  and  its  lawns,  about  the  upkeep 
of  the  public  buildings  which  it  already  has  —  in  which 
case  the  railroad  has  a  fairly  good  reason  for  refusing 
a  new  station. 

Other  railroads  are  following  these  methods  —  most 
of  our  roads  are  quickly  imitative  at  least,  even  when 
they  are  unwilling  to  break  precedent  and  take  a  definite 
lead.  Yet,  in  my  own  humble  opinion,  they  have  not 
begun  to  even  scratch  the  surface  possibilities  of  traffic 
development. 

The  experience  of  the  express  companies  is  illumi- 
nating in  this  regard.  Confronted  with  the  establish- 
ment of  the  parcel  post  and  threatened  for  a  season  at 
least  with  the  loss  of  much  of  their  small-parcel  traffic 
to  it,  they  began  to  look  about  to  find  where  they  might 
develop  a  tonnage  with  which  to  fill  their  cars  and 
wagons.  At  that  moment  the  cost  of  living  was  mak- 
ing one  of  its  periodic  ascents.  The  express  companies 
took  advantage  of  the  situation  and  began  the  develop- 
ment of  a  food-products  service  direct  to  the  consumer. 
The  idea  was  popular.  It  met  with  instant  approval 
and  tided  the  express  companies  over  the  hardest  period 
of  their  history. 

These  things  are  interesting  in  the  abstract.  In  the 
concrete  they  may  yet  spell  the  very  salvation  of  the 


More  Railroad  Opportunity  179 

railroad.  Two  things  are  necessary,  however,  to  trans- 
form them  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  —  brains 
and  money. 

I  think  that  I  have  shown  you  enough  already  to 
convince  you  that  brains  is  not  lacking  in  the  conduct 
of  the  railroad,  despite  the  extreme  difficulty  which  it 
is  having  today  in  gaining  recruits  from  the  best  type 
of  young  men  who  come  trooping  out  from  the  prepara- 
tory schools,  the  technical  schools,  and  the  colleges  of 
the  land.  True  it  is  that  we  have  not  yet  raised  mas- 
ter railroaders  to  take  the  places  of  James  J.  Hill  or 
E.  H.  Harriman.  Yet  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
such  master  railroaders  may  not  be  in  the  making  today 
on  our  great  overland  carriers.  Take  such  men  as 
Daniel  Willard,  the  hard-headed,  far-seeing  president 
of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  Hale  Holden,  the  diplo- 
matic and  statesmanlike  head  of  the  historic  Burlington, 
Charles  H.  Markham  of  the  Illinois  Central,  James 
H.  Hustis  of  the  Boston  and  Maine,  Howard  Elliott 
of  the  New  Haven,  William  T.  Noonan  of  the  Buffalo, 
Rochester,  and  Pittsburgh,  or  Carl  R.  Gray  of  the 
Western  Maryland — these  are  men  to  whom  the  fu- 
ture development  of  our  railroads  may  safely  be  trusted. 

Bricks  cannot  be  made  without  straw.  And  these 
men  cannot  bring  the  great  sick  man  of  American  busi- 
ness back  to  health  without  our  help  —  without  the 
help  and  cooperation  of  every  thinking  man  and 
woman  in  the  United  States.  That  cooperation  must 
come  without  delay,  not  only  to  relieve  the  plight  of 
the  railroad  with  which  we  already  are  familiar,  but 
also  to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  take  advantage  of 


180  The  Railroad  Problem 

the  great  opportunities  which  await  him.  The  average 
railroader  —  feeling  that  the  cards  were  all  against 
him,  that  his  credit  at  the  bank  was  nearly  nil,  and  that 
he  must  spend  the  greater  part  of  his  time  on  the  de- 
fensive, fighting  legislation  that  he  believed  to  be 
grossly  unfair  —  has  not  given  much  attention  to  these 
great  new  ideas,  vastly  radical  in  their  conception  and 
requiring  in  their  execution  much  overturning  of  well- 
established  methods  and  precedents.  Yet  this  is  not 
to  be  interpreted  as  showing  that  he  lacks  vision. 

For  remember  that  the  sick  man  of  American  busi- 
ness is  not  too  ill  to  realize  his  opportunity.  But  he 
knows  that  first  he  must  regain  his  feet  once  more 
before  he  can  begin  important  creative  work.  He 
knows  that  the  lines  along  which  he  has  been  working 
for  a  long  time  have  been  cramped  and  restricted  — 
conservative,  to  put  it  mildly.  But  he  also  knows  that 
before  he  can  begin  on  extensive  creative  work  lie 
must  have  several  things  —  money  and,  more  than 
money,  public  aid  and  sympathy. 

And  of  these  things  —  the  present  necessity  of  our 
railroads  —  we  shall  soon  treat.  But  before  we  come 
to  them  we  shall  come  to  a  consideration  of  a  railroad 
problem  of  recent  compelling  attention  —  a  problem 
that  is  both  opportunity  and  necessity,  and  so  deserves 
to  be  considered  between  them. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  RAILROAD  AND  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


'T^HE  Secretary  of  the  Navy  met  a  high  officer  of 
-*•  the  telephone  company  in  Washington  some 
months  ago. 

"  I  have  noticed  a  great  deal  about  your  new  trans- 
continental telephone  line,"  said  he.  "  I  wonder  if  you 
could  tell  me  how  long  it  would  take  us,  in  a  national 
crisis,  to  get  in  telephone  communication  with  each 
navy  yard  in  the  United  States  and  what  the  cost  would 
be."  " 

The  telephone  man  stepped  to  the  nearest  of  his  con- 
traptions. In  a  moment  he  was  back. 

"  Not  more  than  five  minutes,"  he  said  quietly,  "  and 
in  such  a  crisis  there  would  be  no  charge  to  the  gov- 
ernment." 

The  telephone,  the  telegraph,  and  the  railroad  are 
the  three  great  avenues  of  national  communication.  In 
time  of  peace  they  throb  with  its  traffic  and  beat  in 
consonance  with  the  heartbeats  of  its  commerce.  In 
time  of  war  their  value  to  the  nation  multiplies,  almost 
incredibly.  It  is  then  of  vital  necessity  that  they  be 
preserved  in  their  entirety.  It  is  of  almost  equal  mili- 
tary necessity  that  they  be  kept  close  to  the  armies  that 
are  afield. 

181 


182  The  Railroad  Problem 

Of  the  telephone  we  have  just  spoken.  The  services 
of  the  telephone  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  are  too 
well'  remembered  today  for  it  to  be  ignored  in  any 
future  national  crisis.  But  it  is  of  the  railroad  that 
we  are  talking  in  this  book  —  the  railroad  that  brings 
the  food  to  your  larder,  even  the  milk  to  your  door- 
step; that  keeps  the  coal  upon  your  hearthstone  and  the 
clothing  upon  the  backs  of  you  and  yours;  that  carries 
you  to  and  fro  over  the  face  of  the  land.  It  is  the 
railroad,  that  living,  breathing  thing  that  girdles  the 
whole  land  and  sends  its  tentacles  into  even  the  smallest 
town,  that,  as  you  already  know,  is  your  servant  in 
times  of  peace.  How  can  it  be  made  to  serve  you  in 
time  of  war? 

When  the  last  great  war  was  fought  in  the  United 
States,  our  railroads  had  barely  attained  their  majority. 
In  the  days  of  the  Civil  War  there  were  no  railroad 
systems,  as  we  know  them  today.  Instead  there  was  a 
motley  of  small  individualistic  railroads,  poorly  co- 
ordinated. They  were,  for  the  most  part,  poorly  built 
and  insufficiently  equipped.  Nothing  was  standardized. 
Even  the  track-gauges  varied  and  passengers  or  freight 
going  a  considerable  distance  found  it  necessary  to 
change  cars  at  intersecting  points. 

Nevertheless,  the  railroad  played  a  tremendous  part 
in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion.  Because  of  it  Sherman 
made  his  conquering  march  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea. 
He  was  something  of  a  railroader  himself,  that  doughty 
general.  And  upon  his  immediate  staff  were  expert 
railroaders.  Over  the  crude  railroads  of  the  Georgia 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          183 

of  that  day,  with  the  aid  of  their  war-racked  cars  and 
locomotives,  they  supplied  the  commissary  of  the  Sher- 
man army  as  it  made  its  way  across  a  devastated  land. 

In  the  North  the  military  railroad,  reaching  down 
from  the  very  portal  of  the  Long  Bridge  at  Washing- 
ton, its  railheads  almost  always  touching  the  Union 
lines,  was  an  almost  indispensable  factor  to  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  was  hardly 
a  less  important  factor.  It  paid  a  high  price  for  the 
accident  of  location.  One  of  Stonewall  Jackson's  earli- 
est and  most  brilliant  achievements  was  the  seizure 
of  eight  locomotives  from  its  roundhouse  at  Martins- 
burg  and  their  movement,  some  forty  miles,  over  a  dirt 
road  to  Winchester,  Virginia,  where  they  found  the 
tracks  of  a  part  of  the  railroad  system  of  the  Con- 
federacy. Later  on  Jackson  returned  to  Martinsburg 
and  helped  himself  to  twelve  more  B.  and  O.  locomo- 
tives, also  moving  these  over  the  turnpike  to  Winches- 
ter. He  knew  and  Lee  knew  that  even  a  clumsy  bal- 
loon-topped, wood-burning  locomotive  was  worth  500 
horses  in  transport  service.  And  the  South  was  none 
too  plentifully  supplied  with  locomotives  even  before 
the  war  began. 

The  most  of  the  work  of  the  railroads  in  the  Civil 
War  was  not  dramatic.  But  it  was  thorough  —  the 
carrying  of  men  between  the  cities  of  the  Middle  West 
and  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  At  first  it  was 
chaotic,  but  it  became  well  systematized.  The  direct 
line  between  New  York  and  Washington  —  although 
then  composed  of  four  separate  railroads  —  was  recog- 
nized as  a  route  of  vast  strategic  value.  The  men  who 


184  The  Railroad  Problem 

handled  troops  and  supplies  over  it,  in  doing  so  quali- 
fied themselves  to  assume  the  mastery  of  the  great  rail- 
road systems  that  were  to  spring  into  being  at  the 
close  of  the  war — as  a  result  of  both  construction  and 
consolidation. 

In  1898,  when  the  country  was  again  plunged  into 
war,  preparation  of  the  railroad  lines  of  the  land  had 
grown  to  maturity.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  thea- 
ter of  the  war  was  close  to  the  corner  of  the  land  which 
was  then  most  poorly  equipped  with  railroads.  But 
the  standardization  of  the  operating  conditions  had 
been  largely  accomplished.  One  could  run  a  car  or 
locomotive  upon  practically  every  important  line  in  the 
land  without  changing  the  gauge  of  its  wheels.  This 
last,  of  itself,  was  important.  It  meant  that  the  equip- 
ment of  larger  and  stronger  roads  to  the  North  could 
be  sent  down  to  the  Plant  System  and  the  Florida 
Central  and  Peninsular  —  barely  equipped  for  ordinary 
purposes  —  which  were  suddenly  called  upon  to  handle 
an  extraordinary  traffic.  This,  of  itself,  was  a  mixed 
blessing.  For  the  borrowed  locomotives  were  often  too 
heavy  for  the  light  rails  and  long  bridges  over  the 
Florida  marshes.  Derailments  were  frequent  and  the 
delays  they  entailed,  protracted. 

The  men  who  went  to  Tampa  in  that  hot  summer 
of  1898  have  not  forgotten  the  Florida  Central  and 
Peninsular  nor  the  Plant  System,  even  though  those 
two  railroads  have  now  passed  into  history.  Nor  has 
the  War  Department  forgotten  them.  On  one  memo- 
rable occasion,  the  Quartermaster  started  a  special 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          185 

trainload  of  emergency  army  supplies  south  from  Phila- 
delphia to  Tampa.  In  order  to  make  sure  that  the  train 
should  go  through  promptly,  he  placed  one  of  his  own 
representatives  upon  it,  with  orders  to  push  it  through. 
The  train  disappeared.  After  three  weeks,  the  Quar- 
termaster's Department  found  it  on  a  siding  at  a  place 
called  Turkey  Creek,  a  good  eighteen  miles  from 
Tampa  —  held  there  because  of  the  hopelessly  con- 
gested terminal  at  the  waterside.  And  they  never  yet 
have  found  the  special  representative  who  was  to  put 
it  through. 

These  abominable  conditions,  the  conditions  that 
made  it  necessary  to  take  from  four  to  six  days  from 
the  great  mobilization  camp  at  Chattanooga  to  Port 
Tampa,  a  journey  which  should  have  been  done  in  from 
one-half  to  one-third  of  this  time,  were  not  to  be 
charged  to  the  poor  men  who  were  struggling  to  oper- 
ate those  inadequate  railroads.  They  were  doing  the 
best  they  could,  without  plan  and  without  facilities. 
And  it  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection,  that 
in  that  same  memorable  summer,  an  appeal  came  to 
Washington  not  to  put  more  than  500  troops  a  day 
through  the  Jersey  City  gateway  for  fear  of  congest- 
ing the  terminals  there! 

More  recently  the  railroads  of  the  South  have  been 
called  upon  again  to  handle  troops  and  munitions  and 
commissary.  Of  course  the  problems  that  have  con- 
fronted them  upon  the  Mexican  border  'are  hardly 
comparable  with  those  of  the  Civil  War  or  the  Spanish- 
American  War.  Yet  on  the  very  morning  that  the 


186  The  Railroad  Problem 

entire  country  was  shocked  by  Villa's  audacious  raid 
upon  Columbus,  New  Mexico,  the  heads  of  the  great 
railroad  systems  that  come  together  at  El  Paso  were 
alert  and  ready  for  any  orders  that  the  War  Depart- 
ment might  give.  At  6:45  P.M.  that  evening  a  tele- 
graphic request  for  trains  came  from  Washington  to 
the  general  headquarters  of  the  Southern  Pacific  lines 
at  Houston.  Five  thousand  troops  were  to  be  moved 
from  the  camps  at  Galveston  and  near-by  Texas  City, 
and  as  quickly  as  possible.  Early  in  the  morning  the 
trains  began  moving.  The  railroad  had  made  a  full 
night  of  it.  Throughout  the  night  they  had  brought 
their  extra  equipment  into  Galveston  from  San  An- 
tonio, from  New  Orleans,  from  Shreveport  —  every 
important  operating  center  within  twelve  hours'  run. 
The  trains  were  ready  as  quickly  as  the  troops.  And 
they  made  the  long  run  of  88 1  miles  up  over  the  long 
single-track  to  El  Paso  in  an  average  of  thirty-six  hours 
—  under  the  conditions,  a  really  remarkable  perform- 
ance. 

The  Santa  Fe  and  the  Rock  Island  operate  direct 
lines  from  Chicago  to  El  Paso.  They  were  called 
upon  during  many  months  of  the  past  year  to  carry 
munitions  south  to  the  border  —  particularly  motor 
trucks  —  and  were  not  found  wanting.  The  Rock  Island 
with  its  complementary  line,  the  El  Paso  and  South- 
western, carried  170  motor  trucks  and  water  wagons 
from  Chicago  to  El  Paso,  1,446  miles,  on  a  fifty-hour 
schedule.  The  "limited"  with  all  of  its  reputation  for 
fast  running  and  its  high-speed  equipment  only  makes 
this  distance  in  forty-three  hours  and  a  half,  while  the 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         187 

ordinary  schedule  for  freight  —  which  is  the  equipment 
upon  which  it  was  necessary  to  handle  the  motor  trucks 
and  the  water  wagons  —  is  129  hours  and  50  minutes 
from  one  city  to  the  other.  But  Pershing  needed  the 
automobiles.  They  were  vital  for  his  expedition.  And 
it  was  a  part  of  the  day's  work  for  the  railroad  to 
carry  them  down  to  the  border  in  record  time.1 

The  job  of  handling  the  troops  on  the  Texas  line  has 
hardly  been  more  than  part  of  the  day's  work.  The 
railroaders  down  there  will  tell  you  that.  The  real 

1 "  During  1916  the  largest  movement  of  troops  took  place  in  the 
United  States,  since  the  Spanish-American  war.  It  began  early  in  the 
year  when  regular  army  detachments  of  cavalry,  infantry,  artillery  and 
engineers  were  sent  to  the  border  on  March  n,  March  20,  May  9  and 
June  n.  The  transportation  of  these  organizations  was  accomplished 
in  an  excellent  manner,  in  exceptionally  good  time,  and  without  acci- 
dents of  any  nature.  On  May  9,  the  militia  of  Arizona,  New  Mexico, 
and  Texas,  were  called  to  the  border,  and  on  June  18,  1916,  the  National 
Guard  troops  of  all  the  other  States  were  called  into  the  service  of  the 
United  States,  and  directed  to  assemble  at  their  state  mobilization 
camps.  From  these  points  to  designated  stations  on  the  frontier  trans- 
portation arrangements  were  under  the  direction  of  the  War  Department. 
The  troops  began  leaving  their  mobilization  camps  about  midnight  on 
June  26.  On  Juy  i  there  were  en  route  to  the  border  from  various  sec- 
tions of  the  United  States,  122  troop  trains,  carrying  over  2,000  freight, 
passenger,  and  baggage  cars,  with  a  total  strength  of  36,042  men.  On 
July  4,  101  troop  trains  were  en  route,  and  52,681  militia  troops  (not 
including  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and  Texas)  were  either  at  the  border 
or  on  the  way  thereto.  From  the  beginning  of  the  movement  up  to 
July  31,  111,919  militia  troops  were  moved  to  the  international  boundary. 

"  Some  idea  of  the  task  imposed  upon  the  railroads  of  the  country  by 
the  transportation  of  the  National  Guard  may  be  had  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  350  trains  were  necessary  to  carry  the  first  100,000  troops. 
Over  3,000  passenger  cars,  including  standard  Pullman  and  tourist 
cars  and  coaches,  were  provided,  and  in  addition  about  400  baggage 
cars,  most  of  which  were  equipped  as  kitchen  cars  for  serving  hot  meals 
en  route,  1,300  box  cars,  2,000  stock  cars,  800  flat  cars,  and  approximately 
4,900  locomotives  and  crews,  not  including  switching  engines,  yard 


188  The  Railroad  Problem 

job  of  the  railroad  recently  has  been  laid  overseas  in 
the  nations  that  are  fighting  so  bitterly  for  mastery. 
The  German  military  use  of  railroads  is  most  interest- 
ing because  it  is  the  best.  American  travelers  for  years 
past  have  noticed  upon  the  trucks  of  each  separate 
piece  of  rolling  stock  in  the  Empire,  its  military  desti- 
nation, as  well  as  cabalistic  figures  to  denote  its  carry- 
ing capacity  in  men  and  horses  and  pounds  of  freight. 
Yet  these  were  but  the  surface  indications  of  a  great 
plan  —  whose  formulas  had  been  worked  out  and  rested 

engines  and  their  crews.  The  call  upon  the  railroads  for  the  trans- 
portation of  the  militia  occurred  in  the  fortnight  which  includes  the 
Fourth  of  July,  the  time  of  the  greatest  density  of  passenger  travel  in 
the  eastern  States.  Instructions  were  issued  by  all  railroads  concerned 
that  the  movement  of  troop  trains  was  to  be  given  preference  over 
other  travel,  and  it  is  believed  that  this  was  done  in  all  cases. 

"To  have  effected  the  entire  movement  of  all  the  troops  in  tourist 
sleepers  would  have  required  approximately  3,000  cars,  or  five  times 
'as  many  as  were  in  existence.  The  Pullman  Company,  by  utilizing 
some  standard  sleeping  cars,  made  available  for  the  movement  623 
tourist  cars.  In  all  cases  where  it  was  possible  to  do  so  tourist  equip- 
ment was  furnished,  and  where  they  were  not  immediately  available 
the  troop  were  met  en  route  and  transferred  to  tourists  in  every  possi- 
ble case.  Official  reports  from  all  military  departments  show  that  no 
organization  moved  in  coaches  in  less  space  than  three  men  to  every 
four  seats,  and  wherever  possible  two  seats  for  each  man.  The  total 
number  of  men  transported  in  coaches  averaged  30  men  to  each  coach. 

"  Although  the  movement  of  organized  militia  came  at  a  time  when 
the  commercial  traffic  on  the  railroads  was  the  largest  in  years,  it  was 
accomplished  with  very  little  interference  with  regular  train  service, 
and  with  no  congestion  whatever,  either  at  initial  or  terminal  points 
or  en  route.  In  July  there  were  moved  into  the  Brownsville,  Texas, 
district  106  special  trains,  composed  of  1,216  cars  of  passengers  and 
1,201  cars  of  freight  for  the  army,  in  addition  to  680  cars  of  army  sup- 
plies, handled  in  freight  trains,  and  the  usual  commercial  traffic.  This 
district  is  reached  only  by  one  single-track  line,  and  all  rolling  stock 
had  to  be  returned  over  the  same  line. 

"  The  concentration  of  the  militia  on  the  Mexican  border  and  the 
mobilization  for  the  great  war  in  1914  are  not  comparable,  as  all  civil 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          189 

on  the  shelves  of  the  war  headquarters  in  Berlin.  How 
well  the  plan  has  worked  we  all  know  now.  For  the 
first  time  in  its  history  the  railroad  has  become  an  active 
fighting  factor  —  not  merely  to  be  content  with  the 
bringing  of  powder  and  shell  and  food  and  equipment 
up  to  the  bases  of  the  fighting  lines ;  not  merely  to  as- 
semble troops,  in  a  comparatively  leisurely  fashion,  or 
to  take  tired  and  sick  and  wounded  men  back  to  their 
homes;  but  to  be  a  striking  arm,  if  you  please,  moving 
whole  brigades  and  even  armies  with  all  the  tensity  and 

traffic  was  suspended  in  Europe  to  make  way  for  military  movements, 
and  the  distances  involved  in  the  movement  to  the  Mexican  border 
were  very  much  greater  than  those  in  Europe.  The  longest  run  in  Ger- 
many was  about  700  miles,  and  in  France  much  less,  whereas  the  dis- 
tances traveled  by  the  troops  in  the  United  States  varied  from  608  miles, 
in  the  case  of  Louisiana  troops,  to  2,916  miles  in  the  case  of  Connecticut 
troops.  The  majority  of  the  troops  came  from  northern  and  northeastern 
states  and  were  carried  over  2,000  miles,  in  most  cases  in  remarkably 
fast  time.  For  example,  the  Seventh  New  York  Infantry  with  1,400 
men,  equipment,  ammunition,  and  baggage  left  New  York  at  2  p.  m.  on 
June  27,  and  arrived  at  San  Antonio,  Texas,  at  8  130  p.  m.,  on  June  30, 
a  distance  of  2,087  miles.  Shipments  of  freight  were  made  from  Wash- 
ington and  vicinity  to  the  border  in  four  days,  from  New  York  and 
vicinity  in  five  days,  and  from  the  Great  Lakes  in  a  little  more  than 
forty-eight  hours. 

"  As  a  specific  example  showing  how  the  cooperation  of  the  railroad 
companies  assisted  the  army,  there  may  be  cited  the  case  of  the  first 
motor  trucks  purchased  for  the  expeditionary  forces  in  Mexico. 
Twenty-seven  trucks  were  purchased  under  bid  in  Wisconsin  on 
March  14.  They  were  inspected  and  loaded  in  fourteen  cars ;  the  men 
to  operate  them  were  employed  and  tourist  cars  furnished  for  them, 
following  which  a  train  was  made  up  which  left  Wisconsin  at  3:11 
a.  m.,  on  March  16.  It  arrived  at  Columbus,  N.  M.,  1,591  miles 
away,  shortly  after  noon  on  the  i8th;  the  trucks  were  unloaded  from 
the  cars,  loaded  with  supplies,  and  sent  across  the  border,  reaching 
General  Pershing's  command  with  adequate  supplies  of  food  before  he 
had  exhausted  the  supplies  taken  with  him  from  Columbus."  —  From 
the  report  of  Quartermaster-General  Henry  G.  Sharpe,  of  the  United 
States  Army,  as  reprinted  in  the  Railway  Age  Gazette. 


190  The  Railroad  Problem 

speed  and  resource  at  its  command.  In  other  days 
you  might  laugh  at  the  peaceful  little  German  pas- 
senger train,  making  its  leisurely  way  in  all  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  that  only  an  Empire  may  show. 
But  you  cannot  laugh  at  the  German  military  train, 
black  with  troopers,  darting  its  way  across  the  Kaiser- 
land  with  a  speed  and  definiteness  that  is  all  but 
human. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  real  reason  why  the  Ger- 
mans failed  to  reach  Paris  in  their  memorable  drive 
of  September,  1914,  was  that  even  their  remarkable 
system  of  military  railroads  failed  in  this  supreme 
crisis.  If  this  be  so,  it  must  be  that  the  task 
placed  upon  them  was  superhuman.  For  it  was 
just  such  military  trains  as  we  have  just  seen,  multi- 
plied in  dozens  and  in  hundreds,  that  moved  whole 
brigades  to  southern  Galicia  during  the  first  two  weeks 
of  April,  1915  —  a  distance,  roughly  speaking,  equal 
to  that  from  Boston  to  Detroit.  It  was  the  military 
plan  for  the  railroads  of  Germany  that  brought  the 
regiments  out  of  the  trenches  in  Arras  in  the  last  week 
in  June  of  that  same  year  and  on  the  Fourth  of  July 
had  them  hammering  at  the  might  of  Warsaw.  And 
Warsaw  is  800  miles  from  the  low  fields  of  Arras. 
Not  until  the  war  is  over  will  the  whole  military  work- 
ings of  the  German  railroads  be  known.  But  examples 
such  as  these  show  that  they  did  work.  And  it  may  be 
remembered  that  when  the  German  army  began  flowing 
in  a  tidal  fashion  up  over  the  Russian  steppes  they 
came  to  von  Hindenburg  and  reminded  him  of  Na- 
poleon and  the  retreat  from  Moscow.  And  von  Hin- 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         191 

denburg  showed  his  great  teeth  and  remarked  that 
Napoleon  had  had  no  railroads. 

"  The  bread  which  our  soldiers  eat  today  in  Windau 
was  baked  yesterday  in  Breslau,"  he  added.  And  it 
takes  only  a  single  glance  at  the  map  to  see  that  Windau 
is  approximately  500  miles  distant  from  Breslau.  "We 
drink  German  mineral  water  and  we  eat  fresh  meat 
direct  from  Berlin.  If  necessary,  we  can  build  fifty 
miles  of  railroad  in  two  days.  Therefore  it  is  non- 
sense to  speak  now  of  the  times  and  the  strategy  of 
Napoleon." 

Here,  then,  is  another  of  the  great  practical  lessons 
that  these  three  fateful  years  are  teaching  America. 
Consider  now  how  she  may  avail  herself  of  this  particu- 
lar lesson  —  the  coordination  of  her  great  systems  of 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  miles  of  standard  steam 
railroads  with  an  orderly  and  intelligent  military  plan, 
against  any  invasion.  Other  nations  have  had  to  build 
railroads  with  a  particular  relation  to  military  strategy. 
Keen-minded  Belgians  and  Frenchmen  long  ago  noted 
the  tendency  of  Germany  to  build  double-track  rail- 
roads to  comparatively  unimportant  points  upon  her 
western  front  —  since  then  they  have  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  see  the  wartime  efficiency  of  these  lines,  sud- 
denly turned  in  an  August  from  practical  stagnation 
into  busy,  flowing  currents  of  military  traffic.  Of  the 
strategic  value  of  double-track  routes,  much  more  in 
a  moment.  For  this  moment  consider  the  location  of 
the  principal  rail  lines  of  the  United  States  —  particu- 
larly in  their  reference  to  the  defense  of  the  nation. 


192  The  Railroad  Problem 

The  "vital  area"  of  the  country,  so  called,  is  the 
coast  territory  between  Portland,  Maine,  and  Wash- 
ington, District  of  Columbia,  and  resting  east  of  the 
sharp  ridges  of  the  Alleghenies.  Here  is  a  great  part 
of  the  wealth,  the  population,  and  the  banking  of  the 
United  States.  Fortunately,  however,  this  is  the 
district  best  supplied  with  efficient  railroads,  double- 
tracked,  triple-tracked,  quadruple-tracked.  And  a  ref- 
erence to  the  map  will  quickly  show  that  these  lines 
are  particularly  well  adapted  to  coast  defense.  From 
the  extreme  northeastern  tip  of  Maine  down  to  Key 
West  and  around  the  white  and  curving  shore  of  the 
Gulf  to  Brownsville  and  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande 
there  is  hardly  a  strategical  point  that  is  not  well  served 
by  existing  railroads.  North  of  Boston,  the  Boston 
and  Maine  and  the  Maine  Central  systems  run,  not 
alone  parallel  to  the  coast,  but  by  means  of  a  network 
of  other  lines  intersecting  their  coast  lines,  are  prepared 
to  serve  them  from  the  inland  country  every  few  miles. 
The  importance  of  this  last  fact  comes  to  mind  when 
one  realizes  the  possibility  of  an  invading  force  elud- 
ing our  naval  patrols  and  cutting  our  coast  line  rail- 
roads. With  a  network  of  adequate  line  behind  the  one 
actually  closest  to  the  shore,  important  communication 
would  not  be  interrupted  for  any  considerable  time. 

Boston  is  linked  with  New  York  by  three  distinct 
routes  of  the  New  Haven  system ;  with  Chicago  by  the 
Boston  and  Albany,  in  practical  effect  a  branch  stem 
of  the  New  York  Central  system.  Nor  are  these  three 
stems  the  only  protection  that  the  New  York,  New 
Haven,  and  Hartford  Railroad  extends  to  New  Eng- 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          193 

land.  The  exposed  and  bended  arm  of  Cape  Cod  is 
a  weak  point  in  the  nation's  "  vital  area."  The  New 
Haven  holds  and  controls  the  one-time  Old  Colony 
Railroad  which  reaches  the  old  whaling  ports  of  Plym- 
outh, New  Bedford,  and  Provincetown  —  a  railroad 
which  might  at  any  time  become  of  vast  strategic  im- 
portance and  which  should  be  at  once  double-tracked, 
by  the  Federal  government,  if  necessary,  for  the  same 
reason  that  Germany  double-tracked  her  lines  leading 
to  her  French  and  Belgian  border.  And  only  second 
in  importance  to  the  Old  Colony  in  case  of  an  at- 
tempted invasion  from  across  the  Atlantic  is  the  Long 
Island  Railroad,  stretching  straight  out  of  the  city  of 
New  York  to  the  very  tip  of  the  island.  Between  the 
Rockaways  and  Montauk  there  are  many  points  on  the 
south  edge  of  Long  Island  that  offer  possibilities  to 
landing  parties.  And  it  is  essential  that  the  railroad 
that  serves  this  peculiarly  barren  bit  of  coast  within  two 
hours'  rail  run  of  the  largest  city  upon  the  American 
continent  be  prepared  to  serve  it  well  in  the  case  of 
military  necessity.  Fortunately  the  Long  Island  Rail- 
road has  been  vastly  improved  —  its  double-track  in- 
creased—  within  the  past  ten  years.  It  is  no  longer 
barred  by  the  East  River  from  actual  track  connections 
with  the  other  railroads  of  the  country.  The  great 
Pennsylvania  tunnels  already  make  it  possible  in  a  mili- 
tary emergency  to  pour  filled  train  and  empty,  on  short 
headway,  into  Long  Island.  The  strategic  value  to  the 
nation  of  these  tunnels  will  soon  be  supplemented  by 
the  Hell  Gate  Bridge  over  the  East  River  which  will 
bind  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  Long  Island  railroads 


194  The  Railroad  Problem 

with  the  main  lines  of  the  New  Haven  and  the  New 
York  Central.  This  bridge  cannot  be  completed  too 
quickly.  It  is  of  immediate  strategic  necessity. 

From  New  York  south  the  same  main-stem  railroad 
that  served  the  North  so  well  in  the  days  of  the  Civil 
War  still  stands.  It  has,  however,  ceased  to  be  a  chain 
of  railroads,  with  ferriage  at  Havre  de  Grace  and 
heartrending  transfers  by  horse  cars  across  Philadel- 
phia and  Baltimore,  as  it  was  in  the  days  when  New 
England  and  the  York  State  and  the  Jersey  regiments 
went  down  to  Washington  and  over  across  the  Poto- 
mac. From  Baltimore  north,  this  ancient  stem  is  now 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  four-tracked  or  double- 
tracked  the  entire  distance,  rich  in  surplus  locomotives 
and  cars,  and  halted  no  longer  by  either  the  Delaware 
or  the  Susquehanna  rivers.  Since  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War  the  Pennsylvania  has  builded  its  own  line 
from  Baltimore  to  Washington,  while  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio,  which  owned  that  section  of  the  ancient  stem, 
has  thrust  its  own  line  up  into  Philadelphia,  coming 
from  that  point  to  Jersey  City  over  the  main-line  rails 
of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  and  the  Central  Rail- 
road of  New  Jersey  systems.  This  means  that  there 
are  today  between  these  parallel  railroad  systems  eight 
main-line  tracks  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia  and 
from  four  to  six  from  Philadelphia  through  Baltimore 
to  Washington.  It  is  a  combined  railroad  trunk  of 
which  a  nation  might  well  be  proud.  And  this  nation 
may  yet  be  profoundly  grateful  that  it  has  such  a  rail- 
road trunk,  through  the  heart  of  its  "vital  area." 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         195 

Consider  again  this  "vital  area"  —  the  great  metro- 
politan districts  of  Boston,  of  New  York,  of  Philadel- 
phia, of  Baltimore  —  almost  a  continuous  city,  in  fact, 
all  the  way  along  the  Atlantic  coast  from  the  south  tip 
of  Maine  to  the  Potomac.  It  stretches  west  to  the 
Alleghenies,  in  fact  we  may  say  a  little  beyond  them, 
to  include  such  vigorous  communities  as  Pittsburgh  and 
Cleveland  and  Buffalo.  Here  in  this  "vital  area"  of 
the  nation  are  more  than  eighty  per  cent  of  its  munition- 
making  plants,  its  largest  hard  coal  and  soft  coal  de- 
posits, its  steel-making  plants,  its  greatest  shipyards  and 
its  three  most  important  navy  yards.  Major  General 
Leonard  Wood  has  said  that  1,500,000  men  would  be 
necessary  to  properly  defend  the  coast-line  from  Port- 
land, Maine,  to  Washington.  Therefore  the  railroad 
main  stem  that  connects  these  cities  and  the  many  larger 
cities  between  them  is  the  most  important  military  base 
line  upon  this  continent.  It  needs  all  the  resources  of 
two-  and  four-  and  even  six-tracked  railroads,  for  Gen- 
eral Wood  has  gone  on  record  as  saying  that  in  a 
national  crisis  it  might  be  necessary  to  move  half  a  mil- 
lion men  on  this  great  base  line  within  the  course  of  ten 
short  hours.  On  a  conservative  estimate  these  would 
require  500  trains  —  trains  which,  stood  end  to  end, 
would  reach  all  the  way  from  New  York  to  Washing- 
ton or  to  Utica.  Such  a  train  movement  would  stagger 
even  the  imagination  of  a  passenger-traffic  manager 
accustomed  to  figure  the  "business"  in  and  out  of  a 
national  inauguration  or  a  big  football  game  at  Prince- 
ton or  New  Haven  or  Cambridge. 

A  railroader  whose  pencil  has  a  quick  aptitude  for 


196  The  Railroad  Problem 

figures  has  estimated  that  Germany  has  seven  and  a 
half  locomotives  for  every  ten  miles  of  track.  We 
have  one-third  that  proportion.  Yet  the  preponderance 
of  what  our  railroad  men  like  to  call  "motive  power" 
lies  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  and  north  of  the 
Ohio.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  cars  —  cars  of  every 
sort  and  variety.  That  is  not  the  problem.  Here  it  is. 

Suppose,  if  you  will,  that  an  enemy  finding  an  en- 
trance to  America  on  the  sandy  south  shore  of  Long 
Island  —  to  choose  the  spot  most  in  the  favor  of  the 
writers  of  the  lurid  fiction  of  an  imaginary  war  between 
some  European  nation  and  the  United  States  —  has 
actually  succeeded  in  capturing  the  city  of  New  York. 
The  great  military  base  line  of  America  is  broken  at 
its  most  important  point.  How  are  Major  General 
Wood  and  the  rest  of  the  men  who  are  puzzling  the 
great  problem  out  with  him,  going  to  move  a  half- 
million  men  —  a  half  or  a  quarter  of  that  number  from 
New  England  over  into  Pennsylvania  or  down  toward 
the  defense  lines  around  the  national  capital? 

Take  a  look  at  your  railroad  map.  Look  sharply! 
You  will  need  to  look  sharply  to  see  the  second  line  of 
communication  between  New  England  and  the  rest  of 
the  nation.  There  it  is  —  a  thin  and  wavering  railroad 
line,  stretching  from  New  Haven  up  through  the  Con- 
necticut hills,  spanning  the  Hudson  on  the  slender  tra- 
cery of  the  Poughkeepsie  bridge  and  threading  still 
more  hills  until  it  reaches  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  and 
the  main  base  line  once  again.  The  nation  may  yet 
thank  a  gentleman  named  Charles  S.  Mellen  for  that 
second  line  of  communication.  For  while  the  much 


AMERICA'S 

The  workshops  and  the  coalbins  of  the  United  States,  together  with  the  principal  railroads  which 

hundred  miles  i 


ITAL  AREA" 

t  protect  them.     This  bird's-eye  map  made  as  though  viewed  from  an   aeroplane  at  a   point  five 
of  Cape  Cod. 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         197 

discussed  ex-president  of  the  New  Haven  did  not  build 
the  Poughkeepsie  bridge  or  the  New  England  lines 
leading  to  it,  he  at  least  caused  both  of  them  to  be 
double-tracked,  curves  and  grades  ironed  out  until  one 
heavily  laden  coal  train  could  follow  close  upon  the 
heels  of  another. 

That  was  Mellen's  motive  in  making  a  large  part  of 
this  second  line  of  communication  into  first-class  rail- 
road—  the  perfecting  of  New  England's  long,  lean 
arm  down  into  the  Pennsylvania  coal  bin.  But  no  mat- 
ter what  his  motive  —  he  has  never  pretended  to  be 
altruistic  —  his  coal  line  is  of  great  strategic  value.  Not 
alone  does  it  circle  around  metropolitan  New  York  at 
a  reasonably  safe  distance,  but  it  intersects  the  great 
trunk  lines  running  west  from  the  seaboard  —  routes 
that  would  be  of  unspeakable  strategic  value  in  the  case 
of  the  seizure  of  our  largest  city.  For  these  would  be 
the  lines  that  would  have  to  feed  our  army  — not  with 
mere  food,  but  with  men  and  guns  and  shells  and  all 
that  with  these  go.  At  Poughkeepsie  this  second  line 
of  communication  intersects  the  main  stem  of  the  New 
York  Central,  in  turn  the  main  stem  of  the  Vanderbilt 
system  reaching  almost  every  important  city  west  of 
the  Alleghenies  and  east  of  the  Mississippi  and  north 
of  the  Ohio.  At  Goshen  it  intersects  the  Erie  Railroad, 
come  in  these  recent  years  from  being  a  reproach  and  a 
byword  into  one  of  the  most  efficiently  operated  rail- 
roads in  the  entire  land.  Farther  south  it  intersects 
the  Lacka wanna  and  the  Lehigh  Valley — roads  rich  in 
money  and  in  resources. 

Suppose  now  the  second  line  of  communication  is 


198  The  Railroad  Problem 

gone  —  the  graceful  span  of  the  Poughkeepsie  bridge 
a  mass  of  twisted  steel  in  the  channel  of  the  Hudson. 
What  is  the  third  line  of  communication?  It  consists 
of  the  aristocratic  old  Boston  and  Albany  leading  due 
west  "out  of  Boston,  and  threading  Worcester  and 
Springfield  and  Pittsfield  —  each  of  these  a  manufac- 
turing center  of  no  mean  importance  —  and  finally  com- 
ing to  Albany,  and  of  the  Delaware  and  Hudson,  which, 
bending  southwest  from  Albany,  finds  its  way  through 
the  anthracite  hills  of  Pennsylvania  and  eventually  by 
way  of  Harrisburg  to  the  main  base  at  Philadelphia 
or  Baltimore.  This  line  also  intersects  the  east  and 
west  trunk  lines. 

The  fourth  line  of  communication?  Alas,  we  must 
believe  that  the  capture  of  these  three  widely  separated 
lines  is  almost  humanly  impossible.  When  they  are 
gone  the  New  England  head  is  fastened  to  the  body  of 
the  nation  only  by  a  thin  artery  indeed.  For  the  fourth 
line  of  communication  is  a  wavering,  roundabout  rail- 
road, practically  all  single-track,  which  follows  close 
to  the  Canadian  border.  It  is  of  conceivable  military 
importance  only  in  the  unthinkable  event  of  a  quarrel 
with  our  cousins  to  the  north.  In  such  a  catastrophe 
this  line,  of  potential  military  value,  could  be  made  of 
actual  value  only  by  double-tracking  and  by  almost  com- 
plete reconstruction. 

Enough  now  of  the  possibilities  of  the  cutting  of  the 
main  military  base  of  the  nation.  Go  south  with  me 
for  a  moment  from  Washington  and  see  the  strategic 
position  of  our  railroads  along  the  more  southerly  por- 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         199 

tions  of  the  Atlantic  coast.  Cross  the  Potomac  on  the 
nameless  steel  structure  that  superseded  the  historic 
Long  Bridge  more  than  a  decade  ago  and  yet  is  of 
hardly  less  military  importance.  For  the  trains  of 
every  railroad  running  south  from  Washington  must 
cross  upon  its  tracks.  Of  these  railroads,  three  are 
the  trunk  stems  that,  while  running  many  miles  back 
from  the  actual  coast,  still  serve  it.  They  are  the 
Southern  Railway,  the  Seaboard  Air  Line,  and  the 
Atlantic  Coast  Line.  These  three  railroads  and  their 
direct  connections  reach  from  Washington  to  Norfolk, 
to  Charleston,  to  Savannah,  to  Mobile,  and  to  New 
Orleans  —  the  most  important  of  the  southeasterly 
ports.  One  of  their  most  interesting  connections 
crosses  the  keys  of  Florida  and  does  not  stop  on  its 
overseas  trip  until  it  reaches  the  last  of  them  —  Key 
West,  which  is  almost  within  scent  of  the  cigar  fumes  of 
Havana.  If  we  ever  had  to  send  another  army  into 
Cuba,  Tampa  would  be  completely  out  of  it. 

There  is  hardly  any  comparison  between  these  trunk 
railroads  of  the  Southeast  and  the  lines  that  struggled 
so  hard  to  handle  the  armies  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War.  They  have  been  double-tracked  for 
long  distances,  more  generously  supplied  with  locomo- 
tives and  cars,  although  they  are  still  quite  a  way 
behind  their  northern  brethren  in  this  regard.  Still  it 
would  not  be  a  very  difficult  matter  in  a  national  crisis 
to  move  great  fleets  of  rolling  stock  from  one  corner 
of  the  land  to  another.  By  careful  advance  planning 
and  a  study  of  rail  weights  and  bridges  this  would 
become  a  comparatively  simple  matter. 


200  The  Railroad  Problem 

Ignore,  for  the  moment,  the  strategic  value  of  the 
many  railroads  in  the  center  of  the  land;  forget  the 
possibility  of  an  army  striking  us  upon  our  Atlantic 
coast.  Let  us  turn  our  faces  toward  the  west  coast, 
toward  the  great  stretch  of  barren  and  unprotected 
Pacific  shore  from  British  Columbia  down  to  San 
Diego.  And  before  we  begin  tracing  strategic  routes 
upon  the  map  let  us  close  our  eyes  and  go  back  into 
history. 

Do  you  recall  that  inspiring  picture  in  the  old 
geographies  of  the  completion  of  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  —  the  two  doughty  locomotives,  one  facing 
west,  the  other  east,  with  their  cowcatchers  gently 
touching,  while  a  motley  of  distinguished  guests  are 
indulging  in  oratory  and  other  things?  Do  you  happen 
to  recall  why  the  Union  Pacific  was  builded,  why  the 
national  credit  was  placed  behind  its  construction? 

Military  necessity  is  the  answer.  The  men  who  went 
before  the  Congress  of  the  fifties  and  the  sixties  and 
who  argued  ably  and  well  for  the  building  of  the  first 
transcontinental  railroad  across  the  United  States  laid 
great  stress  upon  this  question  of  military  necessity. 

"  Only  by  the  building  of  such  a  railroad  as  this," 
they  argued,  "can  the  Union  be  held  absolutely 
indissoluble." 

So  came  the  name  of  the  road. 

Today  one  looks  at  the  military  necessity  of  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad  from  another  point  of  view. 
Now  open  your  eyes.  Look  at  your  map  and  see  that 
military  value  of  this  first  great  transcontinental  rail- 
road. Its  chief  eastern  terminal  is  at  Council  Bluffs, 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         201 

on  the  bank  of  the  Missouri  River  and  but  an  overnight 
ride  from  Chicago,  with  which  it  is  connected  by  six 
excellent  railroads  —  most  of  them  double-tracked.  Its 
northerly  main  stem  is  double-tracked  practically  the 
entire  distance  to  Ogden,  Utah,  an  even  thousand  miles 
distant  from  the  Missouri.  A  twin  main  stem  runs 
from  Cheyenne  down  to  Denver  and  east  to  Kansas 
City,  where  it  enjoys  direct  connections  to  St.  Louis, 
Memphis,  and  the  entire  South.  The  North  and  East 
feed  the  road  chiefly  through  its  Council  Bluffs 
gateway. 

At  Ogden  the  Union  Pacific  divides  into  three  great 
feeding  lines  —  the  main  one  extending  due  west  to 
Sacramento  and  San  Francisco,  with  one  to  the  north 
reaching  Portland  and  Seattle  and  another  to  the  south 
running  direct  to  Los  Angeles.  While  these  three  lines 
are  nominally  separate  railroads,  they  are,  in  effect, 
component  parts  of  the  Union  Pacific  System.  In  any 
military  crisis  requiring  the  rapid  transcontinental 
movement  of  troops  they  would  become  extremely 
important  parts. 

The  Union  Pacific  is,  of  course,  supplemented  by 
other  transcontinentals.  To  the  south  rests  the  long 
main  stem  of  the  Santa  Fe,  which  boasts  not  only  that 
it  is  the  only  railroad  with  its  own  rails  direct  from 
Chicago  to  California,  but  that  it  already  has  more 
than  fifty  per  cent  of  its  main  line  double-tracked. 
Farther  south  still  is  the  Southern  Pacific,  which, 
although  its  real  eastern  terminal  is  at  New  Orleans, 
enjoys  a  practical  Chicago  terminal  over  the  lines  of 
the  Rock  Island.  In  the  north  are  three  American 


202  The  Railroad  Problem 

transcontinental —  the  Milwaukee,  the  Northern 
Pacific,  and  the  Great  Northern.  While  the  Milwaukee 
is  the  only  one  of  these  with  its  own  rails  from  Chicago 
to  Seattle,  its  two  rivals  maintain  a  brisk  competition 
by  the  use  of  the  Burlington  and  the  North  Western  sys- 
tems between  Chicago  and  St.  Paul. 

By  the  use  of  these  roads  it  would  be  possible  to 
throw  a  great  number  of  troops  and  munitions  across 
to  almost  any  section  of  the  Pacific  coast  and  in  a  very 
short  time.  And  for  more  than  twenty  years  there 
has  existed  a  north  and  south  trunk  line,  that  would 
make  it  possible  to  obtain  a  flexible  use  of  troops  be- 
tween San  Diego,  Los  Angeles,  San  Francisco,  Port- 
land, and  Seattle.  There  are  lines  close  to  the  coast 
all  the  way  from  Eureka  past  Coos  Bay  to  Astoria  and 
the  Puget  Sound  country.  The  main  north  and  south 
trunk  lies  anywhere  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  miles  inland 
from  the  coast  all  the  way  from  Los  Angeles  to  Seattle. 
Perhaps  it  is  well  that  this  is  so.  It  is  unfortunate  only 
that  no  more  than  a  comparatively  small  portion  of  it 
is  double-tracked  and  that  a  large  part  of  it  through 
northern  California  and  Oregon  is  so  threaded  through 
the  high  mountains  as  to  be  very  difficult  to  operate. 
Military  strategy  demands  that  this  important  trunk 
line  be  made  possible  to  operate  at  highest  efficiency. 
That  can  only  come  through  grade  correction  and  a 
completion  of  double-track. 

I  have  laid  stress  and  constant  repetition  upon  this 
question  of  double-track,  simply  because  a  double-track 
railroad  is  almost  ten  times  as  efficient  as  a  single-track 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         203 

railroad.  That  should  be  apparent  to  a  layman  even 
upon  the  very  face  of  things. 

The  other  day  I  sat  in  the  Southern  Pacific  offices 
at  Houston,  Texas,  and  talked  with  a  genius  of  a  rail- 
road operator  in  regard  to  this  very  thing.  He  was 
telling  of  the  remarkable  record  made  by  his  road  in 
getting  the  troops  across  from  Galveston  to  El  Paso. 
I  asked  what  was  the  best  he  could  do  in  a  real  emer- 
gency—  an  emergency  calling  for  perhaps  the  move- 
ment of  50,000  troops,  instead  of  5,000. 

"  Under  normal  conditions  we  can  put  five  trainloads 
a  day  of  troops  across  Texas,  in  addition  to  our  regular 
traffic  and  keep  them  moving  at  a  rate  of  from  seven- 
teen to  eighteen  miles  an  hour,  including  stops.  We 
could  put  on  more  trains,  but  this  would  not  accomplish 
much  except  to  tie  up  all  of  them.  We  have  to  figure 
the  capacity  of  our  main  line  very  largely  by  the  fre- 
quency of  the  passing  sidings." 

"Suppose  a  crisis  should  arise  —  a  crisis  which  de- 
manded an  even  quicker  movement  of  troops  ?  "  I  asked. 

He  did  not  hesitate  in  his  reply. 

"  In  such  a  crisis  we  would  pull  all  our  other  traffic 
off  the  line  and  move  from  ten  to  twelve  trains  a  day." 

Which,  translated,  would  mean  at  the  most  from 
five  to  six  regiments  of  2,000  men  and  their  accouter- 
ments.  And  this  on  a  railroad  with  a  tremendously 
high  reputation  for  efficient  operation.  Here  is  the 
case  for  single-track. 

Now  consider  double-track.  The  Union  Pacific 
moves  in  summertime  eight  through  passenger  trains 
west-bound  out  of  its  ancient  transfer  station  at  Council 


204  The  Railroad  Problem 

Bluffs,  an  equal  number  east-bound.  Frequently  there 
are  extra  sections  of  these  trains,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
pretty  steady  schedule  of  freights.  Yet  even  this  by 
no  means  represents  the  capacity  of  its  low  grades  and 
double-track  to  Ogden.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  in 
twenty-four  hours  has  handled  121  trains  bound  in  a 
single  direction  out  of  its  great  yards  at  Altoona,  which 
means  a  train  every  eleven  minutes  and  a  half.  While 
the  main  line  of  the  Pennsylvania  is  four-tracked,  that 
traffic  was  freight  and  handled  almost  entirely  upon  one 
of  a  pair  of  freight  tracks.  If  such  a  performance 
was  possible  in  the  steep  hills  of  the  Keystone  state,  it 
would  hardly  be  exaggeration  to  suggest  that  the  Union 
Pacific  could  handle  a  military  train  bound  west  from 
the  Missouri  at  least  every  thirty  minutes.  Taking 
1,000  men  to  the  train  as  a  moderate  estimate,  this 
great  road  could  dispatch  nearly  50,000  men  a  day 
without  in  any  degree  congesting  itself.  And  while  its 
central  connecting  stem  at  Ogden  —  that  portion  of  the 
Southern  Pacific  once  known  as  the  Central  Pacific — is 
by  no  means  completely  double-tracked,  in  a  military 
necessity  it  could  be  made  so  at  once  by  the  simple  ex- 
pedient of  using  for  a  one-way  movement  of  the  trains, 
the  newly  built  Western  Pacific  which  parallels  it  all 
the  way  from  Ogden  to  San  Francisco. 

Here,  then,  is  the  answer,  here  the  way  that  in  a 
military  crisis  we  may  also  gain  a  double-track  trans- 
continental route  across  the  north  edge  of  the  country. 
We  simply  need  to  take  two  out  of  the  three  single- 
track  lines  there  —  the  Milwaukee,  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific, and  the  Great  Northern  —  and  by  keeping  the 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         205 

traffic  moving  in  a  single  direction,  we  gain  at  once  a 
practical  and  effective  double-track  railroad.  This 
method  can  be  repeated  in  the  South  from  Chicago  to 
El  Paso  and  thence  across  to  Los  Angeles,  by  a  similar 
operating  combination  of  the  Santa  Fe,  the  Rock  Island, 
the  El  Paso  and  Southwestern,  and  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific. The  map  itself  will  suggest  numerous  other 
combinations  of  the  same  sort 

Physically,  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  are 
today  wonderfully  well  adapted  to  any  military  crisis 
that  they  might  be  asked  to  meet.  And  the  constant 
raising  of  their  efficiency  during  the  past  decade,  be- 
cause of  the  growing  tendency  of  expenses  to  overlap 
income,  has  done  nothing  to  impair  their  military  value. 
Potentially,  they  are  fit  and  ready.  Ready,  they  are 
actually;  fit  and  ready  is  an  entirely  different  matter. 
Let  us  come  to  it,  here  and  now. 

Suppose  that  tomorrow  the  "cry  of  war"  were  to 
resound  from  one  end  of  this  country  to  the  other, 
that  an  army  of  at  least  1,000,000  men  were  to  spring 
into  being  as  quickly  and  as  easily  as  all  these  pacificists 
aver.  Immediately  the  railroads  would  be  called  to 
their  superhuman  tasks  of  transporting  men  and  horses, 
and  motor  trucks,  munitions,  and  materials  of  every 
sort.  And  somewhere  this  great  problem  of  military 
rail  transport  would  have  to  center.  Today,  in  times 
of  peace,  it  centers  in  the  Quartermaster's  Department 
of  the  War  Department,  which  contracts  with  the  rail- 
roads for  the  carrying  of  troops  and  supplies  just  as 
any  private  organization  might  arrange.  The  existing 


206  The  Railroad  Problem 

study  of  the  War  Department  provides  that  in  the 
declaration  of  war  the  railroads  shall  be  operated  by 
the  Board  of  Engineers.  Yet  to  a  large  extent  this 
earlier  study  has  been  superseded  by  President  Wilson 
in  the  appointment  of  a  Council  of  National  Defense  to 
take  over  the  industrial,  commercial,  and  social  mobili- 
zation of  the  United  States  in  case  of  a  great  crisis. 
As  a  member  of  this  council  Mr.  Wilson  has  appointed 
Daniel  Willard,  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  in 
direct  charge  of  the  transportation  and  communication, 
in  such  a  crisis.  Of  this,  much  more  will  be  said  in  a 
moment. 

It  is  conceded  that  in  any  great  national  crisis  the 
government  would  immediately  take  over  the  operation 
of  the  railroads.  The  advocates  of  government  owner- 
ship point  to  this  as  a  clinching  argument  for  their 
proposition.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  argues  nothing  of 
the  sort.  The  United  States  government,  by  act  of 
Congress  early  in  the  Civil  War,  took  over  the  opera- 
tion of  all  the  railroads,  although  it  actually  took  con- 
trol of  those  roads  only  in  the  theater  of  the  war.  It 
also  took  over  Thomas  A.  Scott,  vice-president  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  and  a  remarkable  railroader, 
and  placed  him  in  charge  of  the  military  roads  —  which, 
in  itself,  is  significant.  Under  Scott's  brilliant  leader- 
ship were  such  men  as  David  Craig  McCallum  and 
Herman  Haupt,  the  last  of  these  a  man  whose  com- 
bined knowledge  of  army  organization  and  railroad 
operation  made  him  almost  invaluable  to  the  govern- 
ment. And  the  real  success  of  the  Federal  military 
railroads  in  the  Civil  War  was  due  to  the  fact  that 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          207 

the  government  officers  who  operated  them  were  expert 
railroaders  borrowed  for  the  nonce  from  civil  life. 

It  would  be  hardly  less  than  a  calamity  for  the  army 
to  attempt  to  operate  the  railroads  of  the  United  States 
or  any  considerable  part  of  them.  The  army  officers 
know  that.  Leonard  Wood  knows  it.  The  War  Col- 
lege down  at  Washington  knows  it  and  has  prepared  a 
new  study  of  the  new  problem  recognizing  the  necessity 
of  keeping  the  railroads  in  any  crisis  operated  by  rail- 
road men.  An  army  man  is  no  more  competent  to 
operate  a  railroad  than  a  railroader  is  to  command  a 
brigade  upon  the  field  of  battle. 

There  is  a  railroad  executive  up  in  New  England 
who  well  remembers  the  days  of  the  Spanish  war.  At 
that  time  he  was  trainmaster  of  the  Southern  Railway 
at  Asheville,  North  Carolina.  His  division  ran  from 
Knoxville,  Tennessee,  down  to  the  main  line  at  Salis- 
bury—  242  miles.  It  threaded  the  Blue  Ridge  Moun- 
tains and  did  it  with  difficulty.  It  was  a  hard  road  to 
operate  at  the  best.  And  in  1898  Fate  called  upon  it 
to  handle  a  considerable  number  of  troops  from  the 
concentration  camp  at  Chattanooga  down  toward  the 
embarkation  stations  at  Norfolk  and  Newport  News. 
That  was  the  difficult  problem,  with  the  high  grades, 
the  many  curves,  and  the  few  passing  sidings.  To  ac- 
complish it  meant  careful  planning.  The  division  staff 
made  such  a  plan.  Each  meeting  point  for  the  regular 
trains  and  the  extra  was  carefully  designated  and  a  time 
allowance  for  meals  at  Asheville  was  arranged;  forty 
minutes,  no  more,  no  less. 

Being    well    planned,    the    operation    went    along 


208  The  Railroad  Problem 

smoothly  —  that  is,  until  the  road  was  forced  to  break 
away  from  its  own  scheme.  The  trainmaster  was  about 
to  dispatch  one  of  the  troop  trains  from  Asheville,  its 
forty-minute  meal  period  having  nearly  expired,  when 
an  assistant  informed  him  that  the  officers  of  the  regi- 
ment it  carried  were  not  aboard.  The  trainmaster  hur- 
ried downstairs.  The  officers  were  having  their  after- 
dinner  coffee  and  their  cigars  and  showed  no  disposition 
whatsoever  to  hurry  out  to  the  cars.  He  made  up  his 
mind  quickly.  He  knew  that  if  this  train  was  delayed 
ten  minutes  the  whole  operating  plan  would  go  to  pieces 
and  the  entire  division  become  almost  hopelessly  con- 
gested. He  went  to  the  commanding  officer  and  quickly 
explained  this  to  him. 

The  colonel  of  the  volunteers  quickly  waved  him  to 
one  side. 

"This  train '11  start  when  I'm  good  and  ready  to 
have  it  start,"  he  said  huskily. 

The  trainmaster  stood  his  ground. 

"  I'll  have  to  send  it  on  in  three  minutes,"  he  said 
politely,  "  and  you  gentlemen  will  have  to  take  your 
chance  in  getting  on  another  section." 

The  army  man  (volunteer)  swore  a  great  big  oath, 
and  added: 

;<  You  make  a  move  to  start  this  train  before  I  give 
the  word  and  I  will  make  you  a  military  prisoner." 

The  railroader  capitulated,  although  today  he  is 
sorry  that  he  did  not  stick  it  out  and  go  to  prison.  And 
the  operating  schedule  of  his  division  went  to  pot. 
Stalled  trains  piled  up  for  miles  along  its  main  line 
and  its  sidings.  Incredible  delays  were  the  immediate 


Railroad  and  National  Defense          209 

result  of  one  man's  tinkering  with  the  delicate  operating 
structure  of  the  railroad. 

But  given  even  a  fairly  free  hand,  a  measure  of 
authority,  and  some  opportunity  for  preparation,  the 
railroader  will  be  able  to  give  a  good  account  of  him- 
self in  the  military  handling  of  troops.  He  has  shown 
that  during  the  past  year  when  he  has  been  called  upon 
to  hurriedly  move  our  army  toward  the  south  border 
of  the  nation.  I  have  told  already  of  the  records  made 
on  that  occasion  —  how  long  trains,  filled  with  troops 
and  provisions  and  munitions  of  war,  were  sent  down 
to  the  border  in  double-quick  time.  One  thing  I  have 
not  yet  told  —  the  provisions  for  housing  and  feeding 
these  troops  while  they  are  on  the  road. 

It  now  is  definitely  understood  that  troop  movements 
of  the  regular  army,  volunteers  and  militia  as  well,  are 
to  be  made  with  sleeping  equipment,  particularly  on 
long-distance  runs.  The  practice  is  to  use  the  so-called 
standard  Pullmans  for  the  officers,  the  tourist-sleepers 
for  the  men  —  three  to  the  section.  Obviously  it  is 
out  of  the  question  to  feed  a  regiment,  or  even  a  por- 
tion of  it,  in  dining  cars.  Sometimes  it  is  difficult  to 
make  last-minute  arrangements  at  eating-houses  along 
the  line,  even  if  the  regiment  wished  to  spare  the  time 
to  detrain  for  a  meal.  The  Pullman  Company  has 
solved  the  problem  for  at  least  the  ordinary  movements 
of  the  army  by  the  construction  of  kitchen-cars.  These 
are  long,  fourteen-section  tourist-sleepers,  with  an  un- 
usually capacious  kitchen  at  one  end.  This  kitchen  can 
easily  feed  not  only  the  car  in  which  it  is  located,  but 


210  The  Railroad  Problem 

the  occupants  of  an  entire  train  of  average  length.  It 
is  not  difficult  for  it  to  give  three  square  meals  a  day 
to  300  hungry  men.  Here  is  a  bit  of  practical  efficiency 
that  is  worthy  of  passing  notice. 

Of  course  no  one  expects  that  in  a  time  of  great  mili- 
tary urgency  the  troops  would  ride  in  Pullmans.  They 
would  be  lucky  to  get  day  coaches,  and  in  the  final 
stress  of  things,  it  would  probably  be  found  necessary 
to  quickly  cut  windows  in  the  sides  of  freight  cars  and 
hurriedly  equip  them  with  seats.  A  Yankee  box  car 
so  equipped  would  be  a  good  deal  better  than  a  good 
many  of  the  small  cars  in  which  the  German  army  has 
been  so  quickly  and  so  efficiently  transferred  from  one 
side  of  that  kingdom  to  the  other. 

It  is  the  flexibility  of  the  standard  equipment  of  the 
American  railroads  that  today  offers  perhaps  the  largest 
opportunity  for  its  successful  military  use.  A  single 
instance  will  prove  this.  A  man  —  his  name  is  L.  W. 
Luellen  —  has  devised  a  scheme  for  mounting  heavy 
rapid-fire  ordnance  upon  steel  flat  cars.  Obviously  it 
would  be  quite  impossible  to  fire  even  a  miniature  "big 
Bertha"  from  anything  so  unstable  as  a  railroad  car. 
But  Mr.  Luellen  has  met  this  difficulty  by  arranging  to 
have  built  at  intervals  not  exceeding  thirty  miles 
along  the  entire  Atlantic  coast,  short  sidings  flanked  by 
heavy  concrete  bases. 

He,  too,  has  studied  his  railroad  map,  as  a  little 
while  ago  we  were  studying  it.  He  has  found  that  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  guns  with  a  fifteen-mile 
shooting  radius,  could  by  means  of  these  permanent 
bases  at  thirty-mile  intervals  protect  the  entire  Atlantic 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         211 

coast,  a  good  portion  of  the  Pacific  as  well.  The 
method  of  their  operation  is  simple.  The  guns  would 
be  sent  to  any  section  they  were  needed  on  fast  passen- 
ger schedule.  It  would  be  a  matter  of  minutes  rather 
than  hours,  for  the  flat  cars  to  be  run  in  between  the 
permanent  concrete  bases  and  by  jacks  transferred  to 
them  from  the  cars. 

The  scheme  is  so  simple  that  it  seems  absurd.  But 
the  War  Department  experts  say  that  it  is  remarkably 
practical.  And  Mr.  Luellen,  who  seems  to  know  what 
he  is  talking  about,  says  that  it  would  not  cost  more 
than  $10,000,000  to  install  it — guns,  cars,  and  per- 
manent bases,  along  the  North  Atlantic  seaboard. 
Here  is  a  form  of  railroad  preparedness  that  would 
seem  worth  the  careful  attention  of  the  national  legis- 
lature. 

Already  the  American  army  has  what  is  known  as 
the  Medical  Reserve  Corps,  made  up  of  physicians  and 
surgeons  all  the  way  across  the  land.  The  great  na- 
tional organizations  of  civil  engineers  are  beginning 
to  plan  a  similar  reserve  in  the  ranks  of  their  own 
profession.  In  the  American  Railway  Association,  the 
railroads  of  this  country  have  a  common  meeting 
ground  and  an  organization  that  can  quickly  take  defi- 
nite steps  toward  meeting  the  Federal  authorities  in 
planning  the  military  use  of  the  transportation  routes 
of  the  country.  There  is  no  mistaking  the  patriotism 
of  the  railroaders.  Some  of  them  have  smarted  in 
recent  years  under  what  they  have  believed  to  be  an 
unwarranted  intrusion  by  the  Federal  authorities  into 


212  The  Railroad  Problem 

the  affairs  of  their  properties,  but  at  heart  every  man 
of  them  is  loyally  American.  And  every  man  of  them 
is  not  merely  loyal  in  a  passive  sense,  but  is  both  willing 
and  able  to  aid  the  government  with  all  the  resources  at 
his  command. 

Take  the  critical  situation  which  broke  upon  the 
country  early  in  the  present  year  when  diplomatic  rela- 
tions with  Germany  suddenly  were  broken  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  war  loomed  high.  President  Wilson,  acting 
under  the  authority  which  Congress  had  vested  in  him 
immediately  appointed  a  committee  of  seven  prominent 
Americans  —  a  Council  of  National  Defense.  As  a 
member  of  this  Council  and  in  immediate  charge  of  the 
nation's  transportation  and  communication  in  case  of 
emergency  Mr.  Wilson  chose  Daniel  Willard,  presi- 
dent of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad.  He  chose 
wisely.  Of  the  dominant  quality  of  Mr.  Willard's 
Americanism  as  well  as  of  his  great  railroad  ability  and 
executive  fitness  for  so  important  a  post  there  can  be 
no  question. 

Within  seven  days  after  he  had  accepted  this  billet, 
Willard  was  at  work  for  the  government.  He  bespoke 
for  it  at  once  the  interest  and  cooperation  of  the  heads 
of  the  other  great  railroads  of  America.  He  knew 
that  in  any  national  crisis  the  interest  and  the  patriotism 
of  these  men  was  never  to  be  doubted.  And  so  he 
sought  their  cooperation  and  not  in  vain.  A  full  dozen 
of  the  biggest  railroad  executives  in  the  United  States 
closed  their  desks  and  at  Willard's  suggestion  came 
hurrying  to  Washington.  When  their  conference  was 
done,  a  definite  plan  for  the  service  of  the  railroads  in 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         213 

a  time  of. great  national  stress  had  been  begun  —  a  pro- 
gram which  the  railroad  executives  then  returned  to 
study  in  detail.  At  the  conference  they  were  told  of 
the  great  defense  and  offense  plans  of  the  War  College 
for  the  part  which  the  railroad  must  play  in  a  national 
emergency.  Some  of  the  railroad  presidents  learned 
for  the  first  time  the  designated  mobilization  centers  all 
the  way  across  the  land,  the  equipment  necessary  for 
each,  the  movement  and  direction  of  troop  and  muni- 
tion trains,  from  every  one  of  them. 

It  is  gratifying  to  know  that  these  railroad  executives 
already  are  giving  much  time  and  thought  to  the  use  of 
our  railroads  in  national  defense.  So  is  Major  Charles 
Hine,  who,  like  Herman  Haupt,  came  out  of  West 
Point,  perfected  himself  in  military  training  and  organ- 
ization and  gave  his  time  after  leaving  the  army  to 
railroad  training  and  organization.  Hine  started  as  a 
brakeman  on  the  Erie  Railroad,  in  order  that  he  might 
study  railroad  operation  from  the  bottom  up  —  that  he 
might  eventually  bring  to  the  railroad  some  of  the 
really  good  points  of  the  army.  He  has  since  held  high 
executive  positions  in  many  of  the  great  railroad  sys- 
tems of  the  land  —  studying  the  problems  of  each  until 
he  knows  the  railroad  map  of  this  country  as  you  and  I 
know  the  fingers  of  our  hands.  The  value  of  such  a 
man  to  America  in  an  emergency  is  not  to  be  figured  in 
dollars  and  cents. 

But  to  my  own  mind,  the  value  of  such  a  military 
reserve  corps  among  the  railroaders  will  be  compara- 
tively slight  if  its  membership  be  confined  merely  to 
railroad  executives.  The  qualities  of  patriotism  and 


214  The  Railroad  Problem 

good  Americanism  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
higher-paid  railroad  men.  Take  a  purely  supposititious 
case  —  yet  an  entirely  typical  one: 

Down  in  the  offices  of  the  old  Cumberland  Valley 
Railroad  at  Chambersburg,  we  will  say,  there  is  a  boy 
who  is  assistant  trainmaster  or  assistant  superintendent. 
He  is  a  smart  boy,  who  has  climbed  rapidly  in  railroad 
ranks  because  of  his  abilities.  He  reads  the  papers. 
He  is  keenly  interested  in  this  whole  idea  of  national 
defense.  He  reads  the  newspapers  and  the  maga- 
zines and  he  wonders  what  his  own  part  would  be  if 
Washington  were  taken  by  an  enemy  invader.  Being  a 
good  railroader  he  does  not  have  to  spend  much  time 
in  doubts.  He  knows  that  his  little  railroad  —  ever 
an  important  cross-country  traffic  link  from  Harrisburg 
down  to  Martinsburg  and  Winchester,  will  suddenly 
become  part  of  the  military  base  line  north  and  south 
along  the  Atlantic  coast.  Over  its  stout  rails  will  come 
the  tidal  overflow  that  ordinarily  moves  over  the 
four  busy  tracks  of  the  two  railroad  systems  between 
Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  That  means  that  his 
railroad,  his  own  division,  himself,  if  you  please, 
will  be  called  upon  to  handle  a  great  traffic  from 
Harrisburg  south  to  the  upreached  arms  of  the 
Norfolk  and  Western  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
lines. 

That  young  man  in  the  Chambersburg  railroad  office 
should  be  under  a  course  of  instruction  today,  as  to 
the  emergency  use  of  his  railroad,  his  division.  The 
division  is  the  operating  unit  of  the  railroad  in  America. 
Therefore  a  scheme  for  the  military  use  of  the  railroad 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         215 

should  begin  with  its  head,  the  superintendent.  In  the 
superintendent's  office  of  every  railroad  division  that 
may  have  possible  military  value,  there  should  be  a 
member  of  the  army  reserve  corps,  making  the  plan 
for  the  possible  military  use  of  his  division.  In  the 
general  superintendent's  office  there  should  be  another 
reserve  officer  studying  the  schemes  of  the  several  divi- 
sions that  center  there.  Similarly  the  process  should 
be  repeated  in  the  general  manager's  and  the  presi- 
dent's offices,  where  authority  converges  still  further. 
This  is  important  work,  vital  training,  if  you  please. 
It  is  hardly  the  sort  of  detail  work  to  be  placed  upon 
the  shoulders  of  a  railroad  executive,  already  burdened 
with  a  vast  amount  of  other  detail. 

The  best  army  training  is  that  which  simulates,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  actual  conditions  that  might  arise 
in  the  case  of  real  war.  That  is  why  the  maneuvers 
that  were  held  in  the  East  at  various  times  during 
the  past  decade  have  been  of  tremendous  value.  They 
should  be  repeated  and  the  railroads  should  be  asked 
to  play  their  part  at  a  moment's  notice.  To  play  that 
part  well  at  so  short  a  notice  means  planning  in  ad- 
vance. The  New  Haven  railroad  recently,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Harvard-Yale  game  and  the  inauguration 
of  Yale  Bowl,  brought  sixty-five  trains  carrying  33,- 
409  passengers  into  New  Haven  between  9:26  A.M. 
and  2  :oo  P.M. —  the  record  passenger  movement  in  the 
history  of  American  railroading.  Not  one  of  those 
trains  was  late,  not  even  to  the  fraction  of  a  minute. 
In  the  very  first  hour  of  the  afternoon,  22  trains,  221 


216  The  Railroad  Problem 

passenger  coaches  all  told,  arrived  at  an  interval  of 
slightly  over  two  minutes  —  226  passengers  to  the 
minute.  And  the  detraining  and  entraining  of  these 
passengers  was  accomplished  with  military  precision. 

But  the  New  Haven's  remarkable  performance  was 
the  result  of  planning — planning  to  the  last  detail. 
No  wonder  that  John  A.  Droege,  its  general  superin- 
tendent, is  qualified  to  speak  of  the  military  possibili- 
ties of  the  railroad.  But  Droege  knows  that  advance 
plans  are  of  vital  necessity.  Of  course,  our  railroads 
have  met  difficult  situations  when  it  has  become  abso- 
lutely necessary.  The  Ohio  floods  of  three  years  ago 
proved  their  ability  to  meet  a  great  emergency  in  a 
great  manner.  In  a  few  hours  many  miles  of  their 
tracks  were  completely  washed  away,  hundreds  of 
bridges  destroyed,  their  lines  thrown  into  apparently 
hopeless  confusion.  Yet  the  railroaders  never  lost  their 
heads.  They  arranged  to  reroute  their  through  trains. 
Then  and  there  it  was  that  the  Lake  Shore  railroad — 
running  from  Buffalo  to  Chicago  —  showed  its  re- 
sources. For  it  took  upon  its  broad  shoulders  the 
trains  from  all  these  completely  blocked  lines  —  the 
Pennsylvania,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  and  the  Erie  — 
and  for  long  days  tripled  its  ordinary  traffic  without 
apparently  feeling  the  great  overload. 

Yet  this  traffic  was  in  some  sense  routine  and  it  was 
moving  over  one  of  the  most  generously  equipped  rail- 
roads in  America.  The  military  plan,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  may  have  to  make  large  strategic  use  of 
railroad  lines  of  comparatively  unimportant  strength. 
It  is  here  that  the  definite  plan  —  from  the  superin- 


Railroad  and  National  Defense         217 

tendent's  office  upward — counts.  It  is  gratifying  to 
know  that  the  military  bill  provides  an  opportunity 
for  the  construction  of  such  a  plan,  gratifying  to  know 
that  the  War  College  at  Washington  has  succeeded  in 
its  detailed  study  of  the  use  of  our  railroads  in  time 
of  war. 

It  is  upon  such  a  study  that  Mr.  Willard  was 
enabled  to  give  the  railroad  presidents  whom  he  sum- 
moned to  the  Federal  Capital  such  a  lucid  statement  of 
the  parts  that  each  of  them  and  their  railroads  would 
be  expected  to  fulfill.  Further  than  this,  they  are  yet  to 
evolve  recommendations  for  terminal  yards  and  double 
trackings  which  in  an  emergency  would  probably  prove 
of  tremendous  military  value  but  for  which  there  is  no 
commercial  justification  whatsoever.  It  is  expected  that 
the  United  States  government  will  pay  for  construction 
work  of  this  sort.  It  is  entirely  fit  that  it  should.  There 
hardly  can  be  two  sides  to  this  question.  The  only 
question  comes  as  to  how  rapidly  these  needed  improve- 
ments can  be  made,  particularly  the  emergency  termi- 
nals. It  will  be  unfortunate,  to  say  the  least,  to  attempt 
to  move  an  army  of  any  real  size  into  a  seaport  im- 
portant in  a  military  or  naval  sense,  but  inadequately 
equipped  with  terminal  sidings.  It  takes,  roughly  speak- 
ing, one  mile  of  railroad  train  to  handle  one  thousand 
troops  and  their  accoutrements.  To  bring  an  army  of 
fifty  thousand  men  —  a  very  moderate  army,  indeed  — 
into  a  smaller  city  would  require  the  prompt  handling 
and  unloading  of  fifty  miles  of  train.  These  are  the 
military  railroad  necessities  which  must  be  planned  and 
built  by  the  Federal  government  —  without  delay. 


218  The  Railroad  Problem 

All  these  things  are  going  to  cost  time  and  thought 
—  and  money.  And  it  is  because  of  this  last  factor  that 
I  have  placed  this  entire  question  of  the  military  de- 
velopment of  our  railroads  at  the  end  of  opportunity 
and  at  the  beginning  of  necessity — the  immediate  needs 
of  the  railroad,  which  we  are  now  going  to  consider. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  RAILROAD 

TN  the  entire  history  of  the  railroads  they  have  never 
•*•  witnessed  an  outpouring  of  freight  traffic  such  as 
came  to  their  rails  this  winter  and  last,  and  congested 
their  yards  and  lines  in  every  direction.  In  addition  to 
the  high  tide  of  traffic  arising  from  a  return  of  general 
prosperity  the  tremendous  rush  of  munitions  of  war, 
destined  overseas  to  the  Allies  from  the  North  Atlantic 
ports,  found  the  greater  part  of  the  roads  suffering 
from  the  results  of  a  decade  of  lean  years  and  im- 
properly prepared  to  handle  any  press  of  business. 
The  causes  that  led  to  this  lack  of  preparation,  I  have 
reviewed.  Because  of  them  the  railroads  were  not 
ready  even  for  a  normal  volume  of  traffic,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  flood  tides  that  came  upon  them.  It  was 
not  possible  to  remedy  the  neglect  before  the  'tides 
began.  And  upon  these  traffic  tides  there  also  came 
at  the  close  of  1915,  one  of  the  hardest  winters  that  the 
East  has  known  in  many  a  long  year.  Days  and  nights 
and  even  weeks,  the  great  freight  yards  of  metropolitan 
New  York,  of  Philadelphia,  of  Baltimore,  of  Boston, 
of  Buffalo,  and  of  Pittsburgh  were  swept  by  wind  and 
snow,  while  the  mercury  hovered  around  the  zero  mark. 
The  record  of  their  operating  departments  against 
these  fearful  conditions  is  a  record  of  which  the  Ameri- 

219 


220  The  Railroad  Problem 

can  railroads  long  may  be  proud.  Superintendents, 
trainmasters,  general  superintendents,  and  general 
managers  moved  into  their  biggest  yards  and  lived  there 
for  weeks  and  months  at  a  time  —  in  private  cars,  bunk 
cars,  and  cabooses  —  right  on  the  job.  But  the  odds 
against  them  were  overwhelming.  It  was  not  until  the 
warm  days  of  early  summer  that  the  congestion  was 
relieved  and  the  railroads  able  to  lift  the  embargoes 
that,  in  self-defense,  they  had  been  forced  to  place 
upon  the  freight. 

It  is  already  known  that  the  congested  conditions  are 
being  repeated  in  the  winter  that  ushers  in  1917  — 
probably  in  even  worse  measure.  And  the  railroads 
even  after  a  comparatively  dull  summer  are  not  much 
better  prepared  physically  to  meet  the  situation.  To 
have  made  themselves  ready  for  any  such  flood  tides 
of  traffic  as  were  visited  upon  them  last  winter  would 
have  meant  the  radical  reconstruction  of  many  great 
terminal  and  interchange  yards  as  well  as  the  build- 
ing of  cars  and  locomotives  by  the  thousands  —  involv- 
ing, as  we  now  know,  the  expenditure  of  great  sums 
of  money.  And  this  seemed  out  of  possibility,  although 
the  orders  for  new  rolling  stock  in  the  first  ten  months 
of  1916  exceeded  the  entire  orders  for  1915.  You 
must  remember  that  it  is  one  thing  to  order  rolling  stock 
in  these  piping  times  of  prosperity — quite  another 
thing  to  obtain  it  from  manufacturers  far  behind  their 
orders  and  greatly  hampered  by  shortages  of  fuel, 
of  labor,  and  of  raw  material.  Here  once  again  the 
railroads  are  greatly  hampered  by  their  lack  of  fresh 
capital. 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          221 

A  little  while  ago  —  until  the  unprecedented  floods 
of  traffic  began  to  descend  upon  them  —  the  rail- 
roaders, big  and  little,  all  the  way  across  the  land  saw 
their  only  relief  in  a  granting  of  further  increases  in 
their  rates,  both  freight  and  passenger.  Even  today 
the  best-informed  of  them  will  tell  you  that  the  neces- 
sity still  exists  —  must  sooner  or  later  be  met — when 
the  war  tides  have  ceased  and  business  in  America  re- 
turns to  its  normal  levels  once  again.  For  while  traffic 
may  return  to  normal  levels,  the  prices  of  both  the 
railroad's  raw  material  and  its  labor  will  not  descend 
so  rapidly,  if,  indeed,  they  descend  at  all. 

Before  the  great  wave  of  war  prosperity  came  upon 
us,  the  railroaders  were  showing  their  pressing  need 
of  immediate  relief  in  the  form  of  rate  increases  and 
were  making  a  very  good  case  for  their  necessities. 
They  showed  with  unimpeachable  exactness  the  steadily 
mounting  cost  of  labor  and  of  materials.  Instance  after 
instance  they  showed  where  the  many  regulating  bodies 
had  aided  and  abetted  in  raising  costs  of  operation  but 
had  not  granted  any  income  increases  with  which  to 
meet  these  costs.  No  matter  how  much  the  Federal 
board  and  the  various  state  boards  might  conflict  in 
other  matters,  they  always  have  seemed  to  be  in 
general  and  complete  harmony  as  to  laying  increased 
burdens  upon  the  back  of  the  carriers.  Under  the  whip 
of  labor,  Congress  passed  the  sixteen-hour  measure, 
a  good  bill  for  the  railroaders  but  mighty  expensive 
to  the  roads.  The  Full-Crew  Bill,  as  we  shall  soon 
see,  swept  across  the  various  states  like  a  windborne 
conflagration  across  an  open  prairie.  And  after  these 


222  The  Railroad  Problem 

the  Eight-Hour  Day!  And  all  this  while  many  of  the 
states  were  also  passing  bills  reducing  the  price  of  pas- 
senger transportation  to  two  cents  a  mile.  A  most 
unfair  type  of  bill  this,  considered  from  any  reason- 
able angle.  For  if  it  were  profitable  to  carry  a  passen- 
ger at  this  figure  —  which  I  very  much  doubt  —  this 
type  of  measure  still  would  remain  arbitrary,  unscien- 
tific, illogical  —  reasons  which,  of  themselves,  should 
utterly  condemn  it.  Yet  here  is  a  sort  of  railroad  bill 
to  which  state  legislatures  are  most  prone  —  of  which 
very  much  more  in  a  moment. 

It  was  hopeless  to  expect  this  sort  of  a  legislature 
to  increase  railroad  rates  —  any  more  than  the  state 
regulating  boards,  which  are  the  creatures  of  the  va- 
rious legislatures.  The  Federal  commission  down  at 
Washington,  did  far  better.  With  its  usual  breadth 
of  judgment,  it  did  not  refuse  to  grant  relief.  After 
a  careful  survey  by  it  of  the  entire  subject,  interstate 
freight  rates  were  increased  slightly;  passenger  rates 
much  more  generously.  In  fact  it  was  the  first  time 
in  years  that  many  of  the  passenger  fares  had  been 
given  any  very  general  increase.  An  old  adage  — 
which  had  become  almost  a  fetish  in  the  minds  of 
the  railroaders  —  was  that  the  passenger  rates  were 
absolutely  sacred;  that  any  increases  in  the  incomes  of 
the  roads  must  be  borne  by  the  freight.  Increases  in 
passenger  tariffs  probably  would  be  greeted  by  roars  of 
protest  from  the  public,  rioting  was  not  out  of  the 
possibility.1 

1  "When  railroads  were  started  in  England,  they  were  influenced  by 
stage  coach  precedents.     They  put  the  engineer  behind  the  iron  horse 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          223 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  interstate  passenger  rates 
were  raised,  and  there  was  hardly  a  protest  on  the 
part  of  the  public.  The  railroaders  who  had  clung 
superstitiously  to  their  fetish  had  overlooked  one  big 
bet  —  the  American  public  will  pay  for  service.  For 
super-service  it  will  pay  most  generously. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  believe  this? 

If  so,  consider  this:  When  you  travel  you  prob- 
ably pick  out  the  newest  and  the  finest  hotels  in  the 
towns  you  visit;  you  are  considerably  provoked  if  they 
do  not  give  you  a  room  with  private  bath  each  time. 
You  scorn  the  old-time  omnibus  from  the  station  — 
nothing  but  a  taxi  will  do  for  you.  And  when  it  comes 
to  picking  trains  .... 


and  called  him  a  driver,  they  called  the  railroad  car  a  coach  or  a  van. 
They  imitated  the  class  distinction  of  the  four-in-hand,  and  then  charged 
by  the  mile.  Coach  travel  cost  by  the  mile.  There  were  no  terminal 
charges,  no  road  upkeep  charges.  It  was  a  piece  rate  proposition,  a 
price  per  mile  proposition  as  to  revenues.  The  great  difference  between 
horse  coaches  and  railroads  was  overlooked.  Probably  90  per  cent 
of  stage  coach  expenses,  whether  of  capital  investment  or  operation, 
lies  in  the  coaches,  horses  and  harness.  Even  in  the  modern  railroad, 
in  the  United  States,  only  20  per  cent  of  the  capital  and  20  per  cent  of 
the  operating  expense  are  in  the  moving  trains.  Classified  passenger 
and  classified  freight  rates  based  on  distance  are  founded  on  one-fifth 
of  the  real  cost.  This  is  not  all.  The  cost  of  the  other  four-fifths  has 
been  increasing  steadily  from  the  start.  Yard  expenses  are  increasing 
far  more  rapidly  than  road  expenses.  The  cost  of  terminals  is  growing 
with  the  square  of  the  population.  What  is  more  serious,  both  will 
continue  to  rise.  Getting  so  much  for  nothing,  both  passengers  and 
shippers  congregate  in  the  big  cities,  and  add  still  further  to  the  con- 
gestion, to  the  increased  cost  of  the  part  of  railroading. 

"  Every  railroad  man,  every  banker,  every  investor,  every  student  of 
transportation  knows  that  rates  should  be  increased  because  the  roads 
can  no  longer  stand  the  drain  of  deferred  obsolescence,  or  unremunera- 
tive  investments,  especially  in  terminals. 

"Rates  ought  to  be  based  on  four  elements  and  probably  a  fifth 


224  The  Railroad  Problem 

Do  you  know  what  are  the  most  popular  trains  in 
America  today?  The  most  expensive.  The  most  popu- 
lar and  crowded  trains  between  New  York  and  Chicago 
today  are  the  twenty-hour  overnight  flyers  which,  for 
their  superior  accommodations  and  their  shortened 
running  time,  charge  eight  dollars  excess  over  the  regu- 
lar fare.  Night  after  night  these  trains  run  in  two, 
sometimes  in  three  and  even  four  sections,  while  the 
differential  lines  —  so  called  because  of  their  slightly 
inferior  running  time  and  accommodations  —  almost 
starve  to  death  for  lack  of  through  traffic.  The  same 
thing  is  true  between  New  York  and  Boston,  where 
the  excess-fare  trains  are  the  most  popular  and  hence 
the  most  crowded.  The  rule  seems  to  hold  good  wher- 
ever excess-fare  trains  are  operated. 

added.  The  four  basic  elements  are.  (i)  Cost  of  collecting  the  traffic; 
(2)  Cost  of  transporting  the  traffic;  (3)  Cost  of  insurance  or  classi- 
fication ;  (4)  Cost  of  delivering  the  traffic. 

"Only  (2)  and  (3)  now  enter  into  rates.  It  is  as  cheap  to  arrive  at 
New  York  at  the  Pennsylvania,  or  New  York  Central  Station,  as  to  drop 
the  train  in  Newark  or  Tarrytown.  It  is  as  cheap  to  ship  freight  to  a 
New  York  dock  as  to  unload  it  from  the  car  at  a  country  siding. 

"In  the  New  York  Subway  the  cost  of  (i),  (3)  and  (4)  sinks  to  a 
vanishing  point,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  flat  cost  of  running  trains 
and  a  flat  revenue  per  passenger. 

"In  steam  railroads  operation  costs  of  both  (i)  and  (2)  are  very 
great,  but  not  made  up  by  revenue.  The  fifth  element  that  ought  to 
govern  charges  is  a  principle  that  even  frogs  know  all  about,  but  which 
human  beings  operating  railroads  have  not  yet  learned,  namely,  to  put 
on  flat  and  expand  when  prices  are  high  so  as  to  accumulate  a  surplus 
to  tide  over  the  lean  years.  This  fifth  element  is  really  included  in  (3) 
classification.  Railroads  now  have  different  rates  for  different  com- 
modities, but  $1.80  a  bushel  wheat  and  $0.20  cotton  are  not  the  same 
as  $0.50  wheat  and  $0.05  cotton.  The  wheat  raised  and  the  cotton 
grown,  and  the  iron  made  into  pig  iron  at  $30.00  a  ton  can  afford  to 
pay  rates  that  vary  with  the  price. 

"  Piece  rates  applied  to  traffic  is  the  tuberculosis  that  is  gradually 
but  surely  consuming  our  railroads."  —  Harrington  Emerson. 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          225 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  hard  sense  to  prompt  the 
operation  of  these  excess-fare  trains.  For  instance, 
take  two  men  —  one  rich,  one  poor  —  and  imagine  them 
going,  say  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco.  They  make 
several  stops  on  the  trip.  The  rich  man,  after  the 
way  of  his  kind,  tarries  in  the  fine  hotels  of  two  or 
three  cities  along  the  route.  He  pays  five  dollars  a 
day  for  his  rooms  in  these  taverns,  and  from  two  to 
four  dollars  apiece  for  each  of  his  meals.  The  poor 
man  stops  in  those  same  cities.  He  pays  from  fifty 
cents  to  a  dollar  for  his  lodging  each  night  and  his 
meals  will  cost  him  nearer  twenty-five  than  seventy-five 
cents  each.  Each  of  these  men  suits  the  necessities  of 
his  pocketbook  and  each  finds  suitable  accommodations 
at  the  prices  he  wishes  to  pay. 

Yet  the  rich  man  and  the  poor  man  pay  practically 
the  same  long-distance  through  fare  —  a  trifle  over  two 
cents  a  mile  —  for  the  journey.  Of  course  the  rich 
man  may  have  his  drawing-room  in  a  smart  train  that 
is  formed  almost  exclusively  of  Pullman  cars  and  the 
poor  man  may  ride  in  day  coaches  and  free  reclining 
chair  cars  all  the  way;  but  the  railroad's  revenue  is 
practically  the  same  from  each  of  them. 

Here,  then,  is  the  rub ! 

Rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man,  thief  —  until  com- 
paratively recently,  and  then  in  only  a  few  cases,  have 
they  represented  any  difference  in  the  railroad's  income 
account.  For  our  railroads,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
long  ago  bartered  away  one  of  the  large  functions  of 
their  passenger  business.  I  am  referring  to  the  build- 
ing and  operation  of  the  sleeping  and  the  parlor  cars 


226  The  Railroad  Problem 

—  a  business  carried  forth  today  almost  exclusively 
by  the  Pullman  Company.  Great  reticence  is  shown 
by  the  railroads  in  speaking  of  their  contracts  with 
the  Pullman  Company,  yet  it  is  generally  known  that, 
save  in  a  few  notable  cases,  that  company  pockets  the 
entire  seat-and-berth  revenue  of  its  cars.  The  rail- 
road derives  no  income  from  hauling  them.  And  it 
is  not  so  long  ago  that  most  of  our  railroads  paid  the 
Pullman  Company  an  additional  toll  of  from  three  to 
five  cents  a  mile  for  hauling  each  of  its  cars  over  their 
rails. 

It  is  hardly  fair  to  scold  the  Pullman  corporation 
for  having  driven  a  shrewd  bargain  years  ago,  when  it 
was  far-sighted,  with  a  generation  of  railroaders,  now 
almost  past  and  gone,  who  were  very  near-sighted  about 
the  steadily  growing  taste  of  Americans  for  luxury  in 
travel.  It  is  only  fair,  in  addition,  to  state  that  it  has 
been  generally  progressive  in  the  maintenance  of  its 
service  and  equipment;  it  has  been  in  the  front  rank  in 
the  substitution  of  the  steel  car  —  which  the  modern 
traveler  demands  and  which  has  been  a  definite  factor 
in  creating  the  definite  plight  of  our  great  sick  man 
today — for  the  wooden  coach. 

If  the  Pullman  Company  has  moved  slowly  in  the 
retirement  of  the  barbaric  scheme  of  upper  and  lower 
berths  giving  into  a  common  center  aisle,  that  is  not  to 
be  charged  against  it  either.  This  is  not  the  time  nor 
the  place  to  discuss  these  cars  in  detail.  But  it  is 
pertinent  to  make  a  brief  comparison  of  them  and 
the  compartment  cars  of  England  and  the  Conti- 
nent. 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          227 

"Are  you  willing  to  pay  the  price  for  them  —  all 
of  you  travelers,  I  mean?  "  says  the  big  railroad  traffic- 
man  blandly  when  you  go  to  him  about  the  matter. 
"  It  costs  you  almost  twice  as  much  for  a  stateroom 
from  Paris  to  Marseilles  as  from  New  York  to  Buf- 
falo—  two  journeys  of  approximately  the  same  length. 
Are  you  willing  to  stand  for  an  increase  in  railroad 
rates  instead  of  paying  the  European  charges  for  sleep- 
ing-car staterooms?" 

You  say,  quite  frankly,  that  you  do  not  object  to 
paying  six  dollars  for  a  compartment  from  New  York 
to  Buffalo,  or  even  seven  dollars  for  the  slightly  more 
luxurious  drawing-room  —  a  feature,  by  the  way,  which 
is  existent  in  practically  every  Pullman  sleeping  car 
and  ready  for  the  use  of  the  exquisite  traveler.  You 
recall  that  it  was  not  so  many  years  ago  that  the  rail- 
roads themselves  answered  this  very  question  —  by 
demanding  that  there  be  at  least  one  and  one-half 
standard  passage  money  presented  for  the  use  of  a 
compartment;  two  full  fares  for  the  use  of  a  drawing- 
room.  Up  to  that  time  those  few  roads  that  were 
progressive  enough  to  use  solid  compartment  cars  in 
regular  service  paid  for  their  generosity.  There  are 
but  nine  compartments  or  drawing-rooms  in  the  standard 
Pullman  all-compartment  car.  And  if  it  happened,  as 
frequently  it  did  happen,  that  these  compartments  were 
all  occupied  singly,  the  railroad  derived  but  nine  pas- 
senger fares  for  hauling  one  of  the  very  heaviest  types 
of  coaches.  A  day  coach  of  similar  weight  would  carry 
from  80  to  100  passengers.  The  new  ruling,  however, 
has  helped  to  equalize  the  situation. 


228  The  Railroad  Problem 

To  return  to  the  excess-fare  trains.  It  now  looks 
as  if  they  were  the  only  way  through  for  a  majority 
of  the  trunk-line  railroads.  Gradually  railroad  heads 
have  been  warming  to  them ;  and  the  rush  of  traffic  to 
their  cars  has  been  almost  as  astonishing  as  the  lack 
of  protest  to  accompany  the  sturdy  raises  in  interstate 
passenger  fares. 

It  is  a  little  more  than  twenty  years  ago  that  the 
fast-running  Empire  State  Express  was  placed  in  serv- 
ice between  New  York  and  Buffalo.  It  was  a  railroad 
sensation.  The  fastest  mile  ever  made  by  a  locomo- 
tive, to  which  we  referred  when  we  were  speaking  of 
the  men  in  the  engine  cab,  was  made  on  a  fall  day  in 
1893,  by  tne  Empire  State  speeding  west  from  Roches- 
ter. The  train  in  that  day,  and  for  a  long  time  after- 
ward, was  composed  of  day-coaches  —  save  for  a  single 
parlor-car;  and  barring  passes,  about  every  form  of 
railroad  transportation  was  accepted  upon  it,  without 
excess  charge.  It  quickly  became  the  most  patron- 
ized railroad  train  in  the  world  and  a  tremendous 
advertisement  for  the  New  York  Central,  which 
operated  it. 

Yet  this  tremendously  historic  and  popular  train  is 
regarded  by  the  expert  railroaders  of  today  as  a  mis- 
take. It  is  a  mistake  that  probably  would  not  be  re- 
peated today.  If  the  Empire  State  was  to  be  added 
to  the  time  card  tomorrow,  it  would,  in  all  probability, 
be  an  excess- fare  train  —  a  little  bit  more  luxurious  per- 
haps, but  certainly  more  expensive.  And  travelers 
would  continue  to  flock  to  it  as  they  do  to  those  staunch 
extra-fare  trains  between  New  York  and  Boston  — 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          229 

the  Knickerbocker,  the  Bay  State,  and  the  Merchants' 
Limited. 

The  railroads  of  the  West  were,  for  a  long  time, 
seemingly  barred  from  establishing  "  excess-speed-for- 
excess-fare  "  trains  by  physical  limitations  which  seemed 
to  make  long-distance  high-speed  trains  impracticable. 
For  you  must  remember  that  in  the  case  of  the  New 
York-Chicago  excess-fare  trains  the  extra  charge  is 
based  exactly  on  shortened  time.  For  each  hour  saved 
from  the  fixed  minimum  of  jtwenty-eight  hours  for 
standard  lines  between  the  two  cities  one  dollar  is 
added  to  the  standard  fare.  So  it  is  that  the  Twentieth 
Century  Limited  and  its  counterpart  on  the  Pennsyl- 
vania, each  making  the  run  in  twenty  hours,  add  eight 
dollars  to  the  regular  fare  of  $21.10.  But,  if  these 
trains  are  delayed — for  any  cause  whatsoever  —  they 
will  pay  back  one  dollar  for  each  hour  of  the  delay, 
until  the  standard  minimum  fare  is  again  reached. 

Yet  the  western  railroads  have  taken  hold  of  the 
situation  with  a  bold  hand. 

"We  shall  put  a  winter  train  from  Chicago  to  Los 
Angeles  and  San  Francisco  that  will  be  de  luxe  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,"  said  the  Santa  Fe  four  or  five 
winters  ago.  "We  shall  have  the  very  best  of  train 
comforts  —  library,  barber  shop,  ladies'  maids,  com- 
partments a-plenty  —  and  we  shall  charge  twenty-five 
dollars  excess  fare  for  the  use  of  this  train." 

Railroad  men  around  Chicago  received  this  news 
with  astonishment. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say,"  they  gasped,  "that  you 


230  The  Railroad  Problem 

are  going  to  guarantee  to  cut  twenty-five  hours  off  the 
running  time  between  Chicago  and  the  Pacific  coast?" 

"  We  are  going  to  run  the  new  train  through  in  five 
hours  less  time  than  our  fastest  train  today." 

"  Five  dollars  an  hour!  That's  going  some!" 
whistled  railroad  Chicago. 

"  Five  dollars  an  hour  —  nothing!  "  replied  the  Santa 
Fe.  "We  are  going  to  charge  for  luxury  —  not  for 
speed.  We  are  going  to  charge  folks  eighty-five  dollars 
for  the  ride  between  Chicago  and  San  Francisco  instead 
of  the  standard  price  of  sixty  dollars;  and  we  are  going 
to  have  them  standing  in  line  for  the  privilege  of  doing 
it!  They  will  come  home  and  boast  of  having  ridden 
on  that  train  just  as  folks  come  home  from  across  the 
Atlantic  and  boast  of  the  great  hotels  that  have  housed 
them  in  Europe.  You  never  hear  a  man  brag  of  having 
ridden  in  a  tourist-sleeper." 

The  Santa  Fe  was  right.  It  gauged  human  nature 
successfully.  Its  de  luxe  train  at  twenty-five  dollars 
excess  fare  has  become  a  weekly  feature  between  Chi- 
cago and  the  Pacific  coast  the  entire  winter  long.  Its 
chief  rival  has  also  installed  an  excess-fare  train  —  in 
connection  with  its  feeding  lines,  the  North  Western 
and  the  Southern  Pacific.  This  train  runs  daily  the 
year  round  and  so  charges  but  ten  dollars  excess  fare 
between  Chicago  and  San  Francisco.  But  in  the  case 
of  neither  of  these  trains  do  they  refund  fare-excess  in 
case  of  delay.  They  feel  that  the  two  big  passenger 
roads  of  the  East  made  a  distinct  mistake  when  they 
established  that  basic  principle. 

Truth  to  tell,  America  these  days  is  bathed  in  luxury. 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          231 

America  stands  ready  to  pay  the  price;  hut  America 
demands  the  service.1  And  the  lesson  of  the  excess- 
fare  trains  is  one  that  the  railroader  who  thinks  as 
he  reads  may  well  take  to  heart.  Some  of  them  are 
giving  it  consideration  already.  One  big  road  has  had 
for  some  time  past  under  advisement  a  scheme  by 
which  it  would  make  a  ticket  charge  of  one-half  cent  a 
mile  extra  for  those  of  its  passengers  who  chose  to 
ride  in  sleeping  or  parlor  cars.  In  this  way  it  would 
compensate  itself  for  the  lack  of  any  portion  of  the 
Pullman  Company's  direct  revenue. 

A  certain  big  railroader  out  in  the  Middle  West  has 
very  determined  opinions  in  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  the  passenger  end  of  the  railroad  receipts  being  in- 
creased. Like  many  of  the  big  operating  men  he  affects 
a  small  regard  for  the  passenger  service.  And  this 
despite  the  fact  that  if  you  touch  the  average  rail- 


1  As  an  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the  sick  man  of  American  business 
has  by  no  means  lost  his  ability  to  render  service,  consider  what  might 
have  seemed  to  travelers  a  minor  detail  of  ordinary  service,  and  yet  was 
in  reality  a  tremendous  task.  On  a  certain  snowy  morning  in  January, 
1917,  traffic  into  New  York  was  unusually  heavy.  The  great  automo- 
bile show  was  just  opening,  folk  were  flocking  to  it  from  all  corners 
of  the  country.  The  facilities  of  even  as  great  a  railroad  as  the  New 
York  Central  were  severely  taxed.  Its  Twentieth  Century  Limited 
was  in  three  sections,  the  Detroiter  in  two,  Train  Six  in  three.  On 
these  and  two  other  trains  due  into  the  Grand  Central  Station  between 
8  and  9:40  a.  m.,  1,200  persons  were  served  with  breakfast.  This 
breakfast  required  sixteen  dining-cars,  eighty-two  stewards,  cooks,  and 
assistants,  and  105  waiters.  Advance  advice  was  received  of  the 
requirements,  the  cars  assembled,  the  crews  brought  together,  and 
everything  made  ready  to  attach  the  cars  to  the  train  at  Albany  in  the 
early  morning.  And  this  was  all  in  addition  to  the  regular  dining-car 
service  of  the  road. 


232  The  Railroad  Problem 

reader,  big  or  little,  upon  his  tenderest  spot,  his  pride 
in  his  property,  he  will  talk  to  you  in  glowing  terms' 
of  the  "  Limited,"  the  road's  biggest  and  fastest  show 
train  —  showy  from  the  barber  shop  and  the  bath  in 
her  buffet  car,  to  the  big  brass-railed  observation  plat- 
form at  the  rear.  He  will  not  talk  to  you  at  length 
of  his  freight  trains,  but  he  will  prate  unceasingly  of 
Nineteen's  "record"  —  how  she  ran  ninety-eight  per 
cent  on  time  last  month,  a  good  showing  for  a  train 
scheduled  to  make  her  thousand  miles  or  so  well  inside 
of  twenty-four  hours. 

This  big  railroader  of  the  Middle  West  does  not, 
however,  take  your  time  in  mere  boasting  of  his  operat- 
ing record.  He  comes  to  cases,  and  comes  quickly — 
to  the  question  of  increased  passenger  rates  when  our 
present  flood  tide  of  traffic  has  descended  to  the  nor- 
mal. 

"  See  here,"  he  tells  you  when  you  are  seated  in  his 
big,  comfortable  office,  "here  are  the  figures.  They 
speak  for  themselves.  Take  New  York,  for  instance. 
There  were  120,750  commuters  entering  and  leaving 
that  big  town  each  business  day  last  year.  With  an 
average  ride  of  fourteen  miles  for  each  commuter,  we 
have  a  total  passenger  mileage  of  1,014,300,000  miles 
in  that  metropolitan  district.  The  passenger  traffic 
from  New  York  westward  to  Chicago  and  beyond  in 
the  same  time  was  234,482  passengers.  Multiply  these 
by  the  average  rail  distance  between  the  two  cities, 
960  miles,  and  you  have  another  225,083,520  passen- 
ger-miles. Now  to  this  add  163,620  commercial  trav- 
elers, each  riding  an  estimated  average  of  fifty  miles  a 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          233 

day — 2,454,300,000  miles  for  these  —  and  you  have  a 
total  of  3,693,683,520  miles  —  or  approximately  ten 
and  a  half  per  cent  of  the  passenger  miles  on  our  steam 
railroads  last  year.  This  ten  and  a  half  per  cent  of 
the  passenger  travel  was  participated  in  by  518,832 
persons  —  a  little  bit  more  than  one-half  of  one  per 
cent  of  the  total  population  of  the  country.  If  this  rule 
holds  good  it  follows  that  five  and  three-tenths  per  cent 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States,  or  5,194,000, 
received  in  an  average  year  all  the  benefits  of  the  pas- 
senger-carrying establishment  of  the  railroads. 

"  The  average  journey  upon  our  railroads  last  year 
was  thirty-four  miles ;  therefore,  a  round  trip  between 
New  York  and  Chicago  represented  twenty-eight  aver- 
age trips;  a  round  trip  between  New  York  and  San 
Francisco  ninety-two  average  trips.  We  can  agree  that 
the  bulk  of  the  passenger  travel  consists  of  commuters, 
commercial  travelers,  men  on  business  trips,  and  per- 
sons traveling  for  pleasure;  in  proportion  about  in 
the  order  I  have  given  them.  If  these  figures  show 
anything,  they  show  that  the  great  bulk  of  our  passen- 
ger mileage  is  used  by  a  class  which  we  may  call  con- 
stant travelers.  I  believe  that  it  is  a  reasonably  safe 
assumption  that  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  35,000,000,- 
ooo  passenger-miles  made  last  year  were  used  by  this 
class  of  travel,  probably  representing  less  than  10,000,- 
ooo  of  the  population  of  the  country.  This  same 
35,000,000,000  of  passenger-miles  distributed  equally 
among  our  entire  population  produces  357  passenger- 
miles  per  individual. 

"  It  is  a  simple  matter  for  the  artisan,  the  farmer, 


234  The  Railroad  Problem 

or  the  man  in  the  street,  without  Wanderlust  in  his 
blood,  to  figure  out  for  himself  that  if  he  and  each 
member  of  his  family  do  not  travel  their  357  miles  in 
a  single  year  then  he  is  helping  to  pay  for  the  passen- 
ger service  of  the  railroads  in  the  form  of  increased 
freight  charges. 

"  I  myself  have  always  maintained  that  the  passenger 
revenues  of  our  railroads  do  not  render  their  pro- 
portion of  the  cost  of  operation.  The  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  has  upheld  the  same  contention, 
as  anyone  can  see  by  its  recent  decision  granting  in- 
creases in  passenger  rates  proportionately  much  higher 
than  the  increases  in  freight  rates.  These  figures  of 
mine  show  how  a  privileged  class,  representing  ten  per 
cent,  or,  at  the  widest  calculation,  not  more  than  twenty 
per  cent  of  the  population,  have  been  receiving  trans- 
portation at  far  less  than  the  actual  cost;  while  the 
remaining  ninety  per  cent  of  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  have  paid  the  freight  —  literally." 

The  railroader's  figures  are  interesting — to  say  the 
least.  And  we  must  assume  that  he  has  not  forgotten 
the  fact  that  there  is  one  great  economic  difference  be- 
tween the  freight  and  the  passenger  traffic.  The  one 
must  move,  and,  save  in  the  few  cases  where  water- 
borne  traffic  competes,  move  by  rail;  a  large  part  of 
the  other  is  shy  and  must  be  induced.  If  this  were  not 
true  the  big  railroads  would  be  advertising  for  freight 
business  as  steadily  and  as  strongly  as  they  advertise 
for  passengers.  Of  course  a  large  proportion  of  folk 
travel  because  necessity  so  compels,  yet  there  is  a  goodly 
proportion,  a  proportion  to  be  translated  into  many 


The  Necessity  of  the  Railroad          235 

thousands  of  dollars,  who  travel  upon  the  railroad  be- 
cause the  price  is  low  enough  to  appeal  to  their  bargain- 
sense.  In  this  great  class  must  always  be  included 
the  excursionists  of  every  class.  These  folk  must  be 
lured  by  attractive  rates.  And  as  a  class  they  are 
particularly  susceptible  just  now  to  the  charms  of  the 
railroad's  great  new  competitor — the  automobile. 

It  was  only  two  or  three  years  ago  that  the  round- 
trip  ticket  at  considerably  less  than  the  cost  of  two 
single-trip  tickets  and  the  twenty-dollar  mileage  book, 
entitling  the  bearer  to  1,000  miles  of  transportation, 
prevailed  in  the  eastern  and  more  closely  populated 
portion  of  the  United  States.  The  price  of  the  mileage 
book  was  raised  to  $22.50.  Within  a  short  time  it  is 
likely  to  go  to  $25.  And  there  are  shrewd  traffic  men 
among  the  railroad  executives  of  the  country  who  today 
say  that  within  twenty  years  it  will  cost  five  cents  a 
mile  to  ride  upon  the  railroad  —  as  against  an  average 
fare  of  two  and  a  half  cents  today.  And  I  do  not 
think  that,  in  view  of  the  advances  in  cost  —  as  well 
as  that  great  necessity  in  making  good  that  loss  in  both 
physical  and  human  equipment,  to  which  I  have  al- 
ready referred  —  the  public  will  make  any  large  pro- 
test. The  average  man  does  not  wish  to  ride  upon  a 
railroad  that  is  neglecting  either  its  property  or  its 
employees.  He  is  willing  to  pay  a  larger  price  for  his 
transportation  if  only  he  is  assured  that  this  larger 
price  is  going  to  make  his  travel  more  safe  and  more 
comfortable  in  every  way. 

Therefore  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  going  to  be  very 
hard  for  the  railroads  to  gain  necessary  advances  in 


236  The  Railroad  Problem 

fares  —  particularly  if  they  will  not  forget  one  big 
thing.  The  success  of  the  Twentieth  Century  Limited 
and  the  other  trains  of  its  class  ought  not  to  be  lost 
upon  the  railroader.  With  service  he  can  trade  for 
increased  rates.  There  are  many  large  opportunities 
for  the  railroad  along  these  lines,  in  both  freight  and 
passenger  service.  A  progressive  desire  to  enter  into 
these  opportunities  will  probably  bring  the  railroad 
many  of  the  advances  that  it  so  sorely  needs.  And  I 
am  not  sure  but  that  such  a  spirit  would  also  do  much 
toward  securing  for  it  the  very  necessary  unification 
of  regulation  —  not  alone  of  its  income  but  also  of  its 
outgo  —  that  it  so  earnestly  seeks  at  the  present  time. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

REGULATION 

A  T  the  time  that  these  lines  are  being  written  the 
•***  railroads  of  the  United  States  are  entering  a 
veritable  no  man's  land.  The  ponderous  Newlands 
committee  of  Congress  has  begun  its  hearing  and  ac- 
complished little ;  so  little  that  it  has  asked  and  received 
an  extension  of  time  of  nearly  eleven  months  in  which 
to  go  into  the  entire  question  more  thoroughly.  We  all 
hope  it  does.  The  Adamson  bill,  establishing  the  so- 
called  eight-hour  day  for  certain  favored  classes  of  rail- 
road employees,  is  statute,  but  its  constitutionality  is  yet 
to  be  established.  And  the  railroads  are  preparing  to 
fight  it,  in  its  present  form,  and  to  the  bitter  end. 
General  sympathy  seems  to  be  with  them;  it  is  quite 
probable  that  even  the  four  brotherhoods  that  fought 
for  the  measure  —  unlike  the  Pears  Soap  boy — are  not 
quite  happy  now  that  they  have  received  it. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  confusion  President  Wilson, 
assured  of  a  second  term  of  office  and  so  of  a  reason- 
able opportunity  to  try  to  put  a  concrete  plan  into 
effect,  has  emerged  with  his  definite  program,  not  radi- 
cally different  from  that  which  he  evolved  last  August 
at  the  time  of  the  biggest  of  all  crises  between  the  rail- 
roads and  their  labor,  but  which  was  warped  and  dis- 
figured until  its  own  father  might  not  know  it.  His 
plan,  as  now  is  generally  known,  provides  not  alone  for 

237 


238  The  Railroad  Problem 

the  eight-hour  day  for  all  classes  of  railroad  employees, 
but  includes  the  most  important  feature  of  compulsory 
arbitration  referred  to  in  an  earlier  chapter.1 

It  now  looks  as  if  the  United  States  was  upon  the 
threshold  of  the  eight-hour  day  —  in  many,  many  forms 
of  its  industrial  life.  I  believe  that,  in  his  heart,  the 
average  railroader  —  executive  or  employee  —  favors 
it,  fairly  and  honestly  and  efficiently  applied.  It  has 
been  charged  as  the  first  large  step  forward  toward  the 
government  operation  of  our  railroads,  yet  I  cannot 
see  it  as  nearly  as  large  a  step  as  the  extension  of  the 
maximum  weight  of  packages  entrusted  to  the  parcel 
post,  a  system  which  if  further  extended  —  and  appar- 
ently both  legally  and  logically  extended  —  might 
enable  a  man  to  go  up  to  Scranton  and  place  enough 
postage  stamps  upon  the  sides  of  a  carload  of  coal  to 
send  it  to  his  factory  siding  at  tidewater.  Compared 
with  this  the  eight-hour  day  is  as  nothing  as  a  step 
toward  government  operation  or  ownership.  A  genuine 
eight-hour  day  is,  of  course,  a  long  step  toward  the 
nationalization  of  our  railroads  —  quite  a  different  mat- 
ter, if  you  please. 

President  Wilson's  entire  plan,  as  it  has  already  been 
briefly  outlined,  forms  a  very  definite  step  toward  such 
nationalization.  It  at  once  supersedes  the  indefinite 
quality  of  the  Newlands  committee  hearings  —  no  more 
indefinite  at  that  than  the  average  hearing  of  a  legis- 
lative committee.  When  the  Wilson  plan  has  been 

1And  now  Congress  has  adjourned  without  passing  the  supplementary 
feature  of  the  Adamson  bill  —  the  all  important  requirement  of  arbi- 
tration in  labor  disputes. 


Regulation  239 

adopted,  fully  and  squarely  and  honestly,  either  by  this 
Congress  or  by  the  next,  it  will  then  be  the  order  of 
the  day  to  take  up  some  of  the  next  steps,  not  so 
much,  perhaps,  toward  the  nationalization  of  our  rail- 
roads as  toward  the  further  bettering  of  their  efficiency 
and  their  broadening  to  take  advantage  of  some  of  their 
great  latent  opportunities  as  carriers  of  men  and  of 
goods. 

The  men  who  control  our  railroads  today  look  for- 
ward to  such  a  definite  program  with  hope,  but  not 
without  some  misgivings.  For,  after  all,  we  are  by 
no  means  nationally  efficient,  and  there  seems  to  be  a 
wide  gulf  between  the  making  of  our  economic  plans 
and  their  execution.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  rail- 
roads are  dubious.  They  are  uncertain.  They  have 
been  advised  and  threatened  and  legislated  and  regu- 
lated until  they  are  in  a  sea  of  confusion,  with  appar- 
ently no  port  ahead.  The  extent  of  the  confusion  is 
indicated  not  alone  by  their  failure  to  handle  the  traffic 
that  has  come  pouring  in  upon  them  in  the  last  days  of 
the  most  active  industrial  period  that  America  ever 
has  known,  but  by  the  failure  of  their  securities  to 
appeal  to  the  average  investor — a  statement  which  is 
easily  corroborated  by  a  study  of  recent  Wall  Street 
reports.  And  what  would  be  a  bad  enough  situation 
at  the  best  has  been,  of  course,  vastly  complicated  by 
the  labor  situation. 

We  already  have  reviewed  some  of  the  salient  fea- 
tures of  that  situation;  we  have  seen,  of  organized 
labor,  the  engineer  and  the  conductor  at  work;  and 


240  The  Railroad  Problem 

of  unorganized  labor,  the  section-boss  and  the  station 
agent.  We  have  seen  the  equality  of  their  work  and 
the  inequality  of  their  wage.  It  is  futile  now  to  at- 
tempt to  discuss  what  might  have  happened  if  the 
pay  envelopes  of  all  these  four  typical  classes  of  rail- 
road employees  had  been  kept  nearer  parity.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  disagreeable  and  threatening  situa- 
tion between  the  railroads  and  the  employees  of  their 
four  brotherhoods  is  largely  of  their  own  making.  If, 
in  the  past,  the  railroads  had  done  either  one  of  two 
things  there  probably  would  be  no  strike  threats  today, 
no  Adamson  legislation,  no  president  of  the  United 
States  placed  even  temporarily  in  an  embarrassing  and 
somewhat  humiliating  position.  The  railroads,  in  the 
succession  of  "  crises/*  as  we  have  already  studied  them, 
must  have  foreseen  the  inevitable  coming  of  the  present 
situation.  They  could  have  fought  a  strike  —  and  per- 
haps won  it — at  any  time  better  in  the  past  than  at 
the  present.  The  brotherhoods  have  gained  strength 
and  the  efficiency  of  unison  more  rapidly  than  the  rail- 
roads. And  even  if  the  railroads  at  some  time  in  the 
past  had  fought  the  issue  and  lost  it,  they  at  least  would 
have  had  the  satisfaction  of  having  fought  a  good 
fight  and  an  honest  one.  Institutions  are  builded  quite 
as  frequently  on  defeats  as  upon  successes. 

Or  the  railroads  might  have  sedulously  recognized 
the  nonunion  worker  in  their  ranks  and  by  a  careful 
devotion  to  his  position  and  his  pay  envelope  kept  his 
progress  equal  to  that  of  his  unionized  brother.  True, 
that  would  have  cost  more  in  the  first  place,  but  it 
now  looks  as  if  the  railroad  would  have  to  pay  the 


Regulation  241 

amount  in  the  last  place  —  and  the  accrued  interest  is 
going  to  be  sizable. 

It  is  not  yet  too  late  to  do  this  last  thing;  it  is  a 
principle  for  which  the  railroaders  should  fight,  into 
the  last  ditch.  The  greatest  of  the  many  fundamental 
weaknesses  of  the  Adamson  bill  is  the  bland  way  in 
which  it  ignores  this  principle  —  the  way  in  which,  as 
we  already  have  seen,  it  singles  out  the  four  great 
brotherhoods  for  the  generous  protection  of  the  so- 
called  "  eight-hour  day,"  and  leaves  all  the  other  rail- 
road workers  out  in  the  cold.  Or  is  it  a  method  of 
proselyting  by  which  the  four  brotherhoods  hope  to 
force  the  other  branches  of  railroad  workers  into 
organization? 

It  is  not  too  late  for  the  men  who  control  our  rail- 
roads to  offset  such  brutal  forms  of  proselyting  by 
raising  the  status  of  their  unorganized  labor — volun- 
tarily and  in  advance  of  possible  legislation,  if  you 
please;  with  a  generosity  of  heart  that  cannot  fail  to 
make  a  warm  appeal  to  public  sentiment.  It  is  not  too 
late  for  our  railroads,  on  their  own  part,  to  consider 
labor  from  as  scientific  and  as  modern  a  viewpoint  as 
they  do  their  physical  and  financial  problems.  It  is 
not  too  late  for  them  to  raise  up  high  executives  who 
shall  make  labor,  its  emoluments  and  its  privileges,  its 
possibilities  of  evolution  their  whole  study.  In  an 
earlier  chapter  of  this  book  we  discussed  this  matter 
in  detail;  called  attention  to  the  lack  of  new  blood  of 
the  right  sort  coming  to  the  ranks  of  the  railroad,  to  the 
opportunity  of  fixing  wages  upon  a  purely  scientific  as 
well  as  a  cost-of-living  basis ;  suggested  even  the  broad 


242  The  Railroad  Problem 

possibilities  of  the  bonus  system  as  well  as  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  complicated  double  basis  of  payment  to 
trainmen  which  has  crept  into  effect. 

Upon  these  foundations  the  pay  envelopes  of  the 
railroad  worker  in  the  future  must  be  figured.  If  the 
railroads  themselves  are  incapable  of  so  establishing  it 
—  and  in  full  fairness  to  them  it  must  be  stated  that 
the  time  may  have  passed  when  they  were  capable  of 
accomplishing  this,  unaided  at  least — then  the  national 
government  must  step  in  and  do  it.  The  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  may  be  asked  to  establish,  with 
compulsory  arbitration,  not  only  a  minimum  but  a  maxi- 
mum rate  which  the  railroad  may  pay  its  various  classes 
of  employees  —  and  so  still  another  great  step  will 
be  taken  in  the  nationalization  of  our  system  of  trans- 
portation. Call  it  socialism,  if  you  like;  I  do  not, 
but  I  do  feel  that  it  is  another  large  step  toward 
nationalization. 

Moreover,  the  very  consideration  of  the  topic  brings 
us  at  once  to  the  greatest  immediate  necessity  of  the 
railroad — unified  regulation. 

Unified  regulation  is  the  crux  of  the  railroad  situa- 
tion today,  from  the  railroad  executive's,  the  investor's, 
and  the  patron's  point  of  view.  Your  wiser  executive 
is  holding  the  question  of  increased  rates  in  abeyance 
for  the  moment.  He  is  devoting  his  best  thought  and 
his  best  energy  toward  simplifying  and  bettering  rail- 
road control.  He  has  a  frank,  honest  motive  in  so 
doing.  Not  only  will  he  build  toward  permanence  of 
the  great  national  institution  with  which  he  is  connected 


Regulation  243 

but  he  will  begin  also  to  induce  Capital  —  the  where- 
withal with  which  to  build  up  properties  and  pay-rolls 
and  possibilities  —  to  come  once  again  toward  the  bed- 
side of  the  sick  man. 

Capital  is  a  sensitive  creature.  Conservative  is  far 
too  mild  a  word  to  apply  to  it.  Capital  takes  few 
chances.  And  the  steady  and  continued  talk  of  the 
plight  of  the  railroad  has  driven  Capital  away  from 
the  bedside  of  the  sick  man.  Yet  Capital,  if  unwilling 
to  take  chances,  rarely  overlooks  Opportunity.  And  if 
Capital  be  convinced  that  Opportunity  is  really  beckon- 
ing to  the  Railroad,  that  fair  treatment  is  to  be  accorded 
to  the  patient  at  last,  he  will  return  there  himself  and 
place  his  golden  purse  in  the  sick  man's  hand.  Only 
the  wary  Capital  will  demand  assurances  —  he  will 
demand  that  the  Railroad's  two  nurses,  Labor  and 
Regulation,  be  asked  to  mend  their  manners  and  that 
that  fine  old  physician,  Public  Sentiment,  be  called  to  the 
bedside. 

Let  us  cease  speaking  in  parables,  and  come  to  the 
point: 

Railroad  regulation  today  is,  of  course,  an  estab- 
lished factor  in  the  economic  existence  of  this  nation. 
Already  it  is  all  but  fundamental.  It  came  as  a  neces- 
sity at  the  end  of  the  constructive  and  destructive  period 
of  American  railroading.  I  connote  these  two  adjectives 
advisedly,  for  while  the  railroad  in  a  physically  con- 
structive sense  was  being  built  it  also  was  doing  its 
very  best  to  destroy  its  competitors.  It  had  hardly 
attained  to  any  considerable  size  before  the  natural 
processes  of  economic  evolution  began  to  assert  them- 


244  The  Railroad  Problem 

selves.  Certain  roads,  stronger  than  others,  still 
stronger  grew.  And  as  they  stronger  grew,  the  sense 
of  power,  the  economic  value  of  power,  came  home  the 
more  clearly  to  them.  To  gain  power  meant,  first  of 
all,  the  crushing  of  their  opponents,  if  not  by  one  means 
then  by  another. 

This  is  not  the  time  or  place  to  discuss  the  great 
evils  that  arose  from  the  unbridled  savagery  of  cut- 
throat competition  in  the  seventies,  the  eighties,  and 
the  early  nineties.  The  whole  rotten  record  of  rebates, 
of  sinister  political  advantages  gained  through  bribery 
of  one  form  or  another,  has  long  since  been  bared. 
The  illegitimate  use  of  the  railroad  pass  in  itself  makes 
a  very  picturesque  chapter  of  this  record. 

Such  a  condition  of  affairs  could  not  go  forward  in- 
definitely. In  this  day  and  age  it  is  a  wonder  that  it 
existed  as  long  as  it  did  exist.  Out  of  this  turmoil 
and  seething  chaos  was  born  Railroad  Regulation. 
She  was  a  timid  creature  at  first,  gradually  feeling  her 
increasing  strength,  however,  and  not  hesitating  to  use 
it.  For  a  long  time  she  had  a  dangerous  enemy,  a  fellow 
who  up  to  that  time  had  allied  himself  almost  invariably 
with  railroads  and  railroaders  —  the  practical  poli- 
tician. Eventually  this  fellow  took  upon  himself  the 
role  of  best  friend  to  Railroad  Regulation. 

The  effect  of  the  railroad  pass  upon  the  dishonest 
newspapers  was  only  a  little  less  potent  than  upon  the 
dishonest  politician.  Put  in  its  kindliest  light  it  was  a 
softening  influence  in  the  editorial  sanctum.  When  it 
was  gone  a  sterner  spirit  began  to  assert  itself  in  a  large 
portion  of  the  press.  The  railroad  was  being  called  to 


THE  ROYAL  GORGE,  GRAND  CANYON  OF  THE  ARKANSAS, 
COLORADO 

The   most   remarkable   chasm   in  the   world  traversed  bv  a   railroad. 


Regulation  245 

account  for  its  sins  more  sharply  than  ever  before. 
And  a  smarting  politician  who  went  before  a  legislature 
with  some  measure  striking  hard  at  a  railroad  could  be 
reasonably  assured  of  a  large  measure  of  support  from 
the  Fourth  Estate. 

In  the  golden  age  of  journalism  both  editors  and 
reporters  spent  their  vacations  in  delightful,  but  dis- 
tant, points.  It  was  a  pretty  poor  sort  of  journalist 
who  paid  his  fare  when  he  wished  to  ride  upon  the  cars. 
Generally  his  own  office  took  care  of  his  rather  exten- 
sive and  extravagant  demands  for  travel.  If,  however, 
he  happened  to  be  employed  upon  one  of  the  few  honest 
newspapers  who  had  conscientious  scruples  about  ac- 
cepting free  transportation,  either  wholesale  or  retail, 
from  the  railroads,  he  generally  had  recourse  to  the 
local  politicians.  There  were  aldermen  in  New  York, 
in  Philadelphia,  and  in  Chicago,  undoubtedly  politicians 
in  numerous  other  cities,  who  carried  whole  pads  of 
blank  railroad  passes  in  their  pockets.  It  was  only 
necessary  for  them  to  fill  these  out  to  have  them  good 
for  immediate  transportation.  The  effect  of  this  trans- 
portation upon  the  political  welfare  of  the  railroads  in 
city  halls,  in  courthouses,  in  state  capitols,  even  in  the 
national  capitol  itself  —  can  well  be  imagined. 

There  was  another  evidence  of  this  golden  stream  of 
free  transportation.  It  was  having  a  notable  effect  upon 
the  passenger  revenues  of  the  railroads,  particularly  in 
the  relation  of  these  revenues  to  the  cost  of  operating 
the  trains.  It  was  no  unusual  thing  for  a  popular  eve- 
ning train  from  some  state  metropolis  up  to  its  capital, 


246  The  Railroad  Problem 

to  be  chiefly  filled  with  deadheads.  The  railroads  grew 
alarmed  at  the  situation.  It  was  beginning  to  over- 
whelm them.  They  looked  for  someone  to  help  them 
out  of  it.  They  found  that  someone  in  Railroad  Regu- 
lation—  that  spiritual  young  creature  who  had  been 
brought  into  the  world  and  clothed  with  honesty  and 
idealism.  Railroad  Regulation  came  to  their  aid.  Rail- 
road Regulation  abolished  the  pass  —  the  illegitimate 
use  of  the  pass,  at  any  rate.  Long  before  this  time  she 
had  made  rebating  and  bribery  cardinal  and  unforgiva- 
ble sins. 

The  effect  upon  the  dishonest  politician  as  well  as  the 
dishonest  newspaper  was  pronounced.  The  reaction 
was  instant.  If  this  new  creature,  Railroad  Regula- 
tion, possessed  so  vast  a  strength,  the  roads  should  be 
taught  to  feel  it.  They  would  be  shown  exactly  where 
they  stood.  And  so  it  was  that  viciousness,  revenge, 
and  a  crafty  knowledge  of  the  inborn  dislike  of  the 
average  human  mind  to  the  overwhelming  and  wide- 
spread corporation  seized  upon  Railroad  Regulation. 

Now  the  railroads  were  indeed  to  be  regulated.  The 
spiritual  creature  was  given  not  one  iron  hand  but 
eventually  forty-six.  In  addition  to  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  down  at  Washington,  each  of  forty- 
five  separate  states  gradually  created  for  themselves 
local  railroad-regulating  commissions.  The  efficiency 
of  these  boards  was  a  variable  quality  —  to  say  the 
least.  But  if  each  of  them  had  been  gifted  with  the 
wisdom  of  Solomon  as  well  as  with  the  honesty  of 
Moses,  the  plan  would  not  have  worked,  except  to  the 
great  detriment  of  the  welfare  of  the  railroads.  No 


Regulation  247 

railroader  today  will  deny  that  it  has  worked  in  just 
such  detrimental  fashion.  He  will  tell  you  of  instance 
after  instance  of  the  conflicts  of  authority  between  the 
various  regulatory  boards  of  the  various  states  through 
which  his  property  operates;  of  the  still  further  in- 
stances where  these  conflict  with  the  rulings  and  orders 
of  the  Federal  board  at  Washington. 

Railroaders  have  large  faith  in  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission.  They  believe  that  is  both  fair  and 
able,  a  great  deal  more  able  than  most  of  the  state 
regulatory  boards.  Yet  even  if  all  the  state  boards 
were  as  efficient  as  those  of  Massachusetts  or  Wiscon- 
sin—  to  make  two  shining  examples  —  the  system  still 
would  be  a  bad  one.  Today  these  state  boards,  in  many 
cases  under  the  influence,  the  guiding  power,  or  the 
orders  of  erratic  state  legislatures,  are  imposing  strange 
restrictions  upon  the  railroads  under  their  control.  In 
sixteen  states  there  are  laws  regulating  the  type  of 
caboose  a  freight  train  must  haul.  Linen  covers  are 
required  for  head  rests  in  the  coaches  in  one  common- 
wealth; in  another  they  are  forbidden  as  unsanitary. 
Oklahoma  and  Arkansas  are  neighbors,  but  their  regu- 
lations in  regard  to  the  use  of  screens  in  the  day 
coaches  of  their  railroads  are  not  at  all  neighborly.  In 
one  of  them  screens  are  required;  in  the  other,  abso- 
lutely forbidden.  It,  therefore,  is  hard  work  to  get  a 
train  over  the  imaginary  line  which  separates  Arkansas 
and  Oklahoma  without  fracturing  the  law.  According 
to  a  man  who  has  made  a  careful  study  of  the  entire 
subject,  thirty-seven  states  have  diverse  laws  regulating 
locomotive  bells,  thirty-five  have  laws  about  whistles 


248  The  Railroad  Problem 

and  thirty-two  have  headlight  laws.  The  bells 
required  range  from  twenty  to  thirty-five  pounds  and 
one  state  absolutely  insists  upon  an  automatic  bell- 
ringing  device.  The  five-hundred  candle-power  head- 
lights that  are  good  enough  for  Virginia  may  be  used 
across  the  border  in  Kentucky,  but  not  in  North  Caro- 
lina, which  will  not  permit  lights  under  fifteen-hundred 
candle-power.  And  South  Carolina  insists  that  the 
headlight  shall  be  ten-thousand  candle-power  or  a 
searchlight  strong  enough  to  discern  a  man  at  eight 
hundred  feet.  Nevada  goes  still  further  and  says  that 
the  light  must  show  objects  at  a  distance  of  a  thousand 
feet. 

Even  the  lowly  caboose,  the  "hack"  of  the  freight- 
trainmen,  has  not  escaped  the  attention  of  state 
legislators.  While  many  states  are  quite  content  with 
the  standard  eighteen-foot  caboose  mounted  on  a  single 
four-wheel  truck,  thirteen  of  them  demand  a  minimum 
length  of  twenty-four  feet — Missouri  twenty-eight  and 
Maine  twenty-nine  —  while  fifteen  insist  that  there  must 
be  two  of  the  four-wheel  trucks.  The  legislators  at 
eight  commonwealths  have  solemnly  decreed  that 
caboose  platforms  be  fixed  at  twenty-four  inches  in 
width,  Illinois  and  Missouri  require  thirty  inches,  while 
Iowa  and  Nebraska  are  content  with  eighteen  and  with 
twenty  inches  respectively.  A  legislator's  lot  cannot 
be  an  entirely  happy  one  when  it  comes  to  determining 
these  details  of  railroad  equipment.  But  then  com- 
pare his  lot  with  that  of  the  man  who  must  operate  the 
railroad  —  who  finds  that  one  state  compels  the 
continuous  ringing  of  the  locomotive  bell  while  a  train 


Regulation  249 

is  passing  through  one  of  its  towns;  despite  the  fact 
that  an  adjoining  state  makes  such  an  act  a  criminal 
offense.  The  life  of  a  man  who  must  operate  a  rail- 
road over  some  seven  or  eight  of  these  states  is  certainly 
cast  upon  no  bed  of  roses.1 

Yet  these  are  but  the  smaller  troubles  which  await 
him.  Take  the  question  of  the  so-called  "  full-crew'1 
law:  Beginning  only  a  very  few  years  ago  a  wave  of 
legislation  swept  over  the  country,  compelling  the  rail- 
roads to  increase  the  number  of  brakemen  that  they 
carried  upon  each  of  their  trains.  The  carriers  pro- 
tested bitterly  against  the  measure.  They  said  that  it 
was  arbitrary,  expensive,  illogical,  unnecessary.  But  it 
was  indorsed  by  the  labor  organizations,  and  the  poli- 
ticians fell  in  line.  Twenty-two  states  passed  the  law. 
Governors  Foss  of  Massachusetts,  Cruce  of  Oklahoma, 
and  Harmon  of  Ohio  vetoed  it.  So  did  Governor 


1  "Fifteen  States  have  laws  designed  to  secure  preferential  treatment 
for  their  freight  by  prescribing  a  minimum  movement  for  freight  cars. 
Several  of  these  require  a  minimum  movement  of  fifty  miles  a  day, 
though  the  average  daily  movement  throughout  the  nation  is  only 
twenty-six  miles.  One  state  imposes  a  penalty  of  ten  dollars  an  hour 
for  the  forbidden  delay.  Though  under  the  Federal  law  there  is  no 
demurrage  penalty  for  failure  to  furnish  cars  to  a  shipper,  several 
states  have  penalties  running  from  one  dollar  to  five  dollars  per  car 
per  day.  The  result  is  that  the  railroads  are  compelled  to  discriminate 
against  Interstate  Commerce  and  against  commerce  in  the  states  that 
have  no  demurrage  penalties. 

"  One  by-product  of  all  this  chaotic  regulation  has  been  an  increase 
in  ten  years  of  eighty-seven  per  cent  in  the  number  of  general  office 
clerks  employed  by  the  railroads,  and  an  increase  of  nearly  120  per 
cent  (over  $40,000,000)  in  the  annual  wages  paid  to  them.  During 
this  period  the  gross  earnings  of  the  roads  increased  only  fifty  per  cent. 
In  the  fiscal  year  of  1915  the  railroads  were  compelled  to  furnish  to 
the  national  and  state  commission  and  other  bodies  over  two  million 
separate  reports."  —  Harold  Kellock  in  The  Century  Magazine. 


250  The  Railroad  Problem 

Hughes  of  New  York.  Later  Governor  Sulzer  of  New 
York  signed  it.  It  also  became  operative  in  Ohio.  The 
people  of  Missouri,  speaking  through  their  referendum, 
threw  it  out.  But  in  twenty  states  it  became  and  re- 
mains statute  —  a  greatly  increased  operating  charge 
against  the  railroads  which  operate  through  them.  The 
"  full-crew"  law  in  Pennsylvania,  in  New  York,  and  in 
New  Jersey  costs  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  an  extra 
$850,000  a  year  —  five  per  cent,  if  you  please,  on 
$17,000,000  worth  of  capital. 

The  "  full-crew"  legislation  has  been  followed  more 
recently  by  an  attempt  at  legislation  regulating  the 
length  of  trains — freight  trains  in  particular.  Some 
of  the  men  who  engineered  the  first  crusade  have  been 
responsible  for  the  second.  They  have  volunteered  the 
suggestion  that  the  railroads  have  sought  to  offset  the 
effects  of  the  "extra  crew"  by  lengthening  the  trains. 
And  they  have  countered  by  proposing  statutes  sug- 
gesting that  all  freight  trains  be  limited  to  fifty  cars, 
about  half  of  the  present  maximum. 

To  the  average  man  this  will  seem  as  logical  as  if 
the  state  were  to  step  in  and  tell  him  how  long  he  must 
take  to  reach  his  office  in  the  morning  or  how  long  he 
must  wear  a  single  pair  of  shoes.  To  the  railroader  the 
injustice  of  the  thing  comes  home  even  more  sharply. 
For  these  ten  years  or  more  he  has  been  working  to 
increase  the  efficiency  of  his  plant.  He  has  believed 
that  one  of  the  straightest  paths  to  this  end  has  been 
in  increasing  the  capacity  of  his  trains  —  just  as  the 
carrying  capacity  of  merchant  ships  has  steadily  been 
increased.  He  has  made  this  possible  by  enlarging  his 


Regulation  251 

locomotives  and  his  cars,  by  laying  heavier  rails,  by 
rebuilding  his  bridges  and  by  ironing  out  the  curves  and 
reducing  the  grades  in  his  tracks,  by  multiplying  the 
capacity  of  his  yards  and  terminals  —  all  at  great  cost. 
These  things  have  made  the  zoo-car,  5,ooo-ton  capacity 
freight  train  not  merely  a  possibility,  but  to  his  mind  an 
economic  necessity  as  well.  And  this  despite  the  inter- 
esting opinion  of  Mr.  Harrington  Emerson  which  I 
have  given  in  an  earlier  chapter. 

Last  winter,  when  the  state  of  Illinois  seriously  con- 
sidered the  legislation  limiting  train-lengths,  the  presi- 
dent of  one  of  its  greatest  railroads  went  down  into  the 
southern  part  of  the  state  and  said: 

"  Do  you  wish  us  to  discard  these  strong  new  loco- 
motives that  we  have  been  building?  Do  you  wish  us 
to  return  to  the  small  engines  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago?  It  would  be  inefficient,  wasteful  to  use  our  mod- 
ern locomotives  for  the  short-length  trains.  And 
sooner  or  later  you  would  have  to  bear  the  cost  of  the 
discarded  equipment.  State  laws  may  be  erratic. 
Economic  laws  never  are.  They  are  as  fixed  as  the  laws 
of  nature  or  of  science/' 

And  the  state  of  Illinois  took  heed  of  what  this  man 
and  his  fellows  said  and  killed  the  piece  of  ridiculous 
legislation.  But  it  is  by  no  means  killed  in  some  of  the 
other  states  of  the  Union. 

The  conflicts  between  state  authorities  that  we  no- 
ticed already  have  borne  directly  upon  the  railroad's 
earnings.  The  conflicting  intrastate  rates  have  borne 
far  more  deeply  and  far  more  dangerously  upon  them. 


252  The  Railroad  Problem 

Indiana  long  since  fixed  the  demurrage  penalty  at  one 
dollar  a  day  for  each  car  which  a  railroad  failed  to 
furnish  a  shipper;  North  Dakota  made  it  two  dollars; 
while  Kansas  and  North  Carolina  fixed  it  at  five  dol- 
lars a  day.  Unscientific  is  hardly  the  word  for  such 
rate-making.  And  how  shall  one  term  Kansas'  action, 
withholding  passenger-fare  legislation  until  she  found 
whether  or  not  the  supreme  court  of  Nebraska  would 
permit  the  two-cent-a-mile  bill  of  that  state  to  stand? 

If  these  rank  discrepancies  in  the  manhandling  of 
rates  by  the  various  states  affected  only  their  own  terri- 
tories it  would  be  quite  bad  enough.  Unfortunately 
they  play  sad  and  constant  havoc  with  the  interstate 
rates.1  These  are  delicate  and  builded,  many  times, 

1  Illinois  a  few  years  ago  passed  a  statute  limiting  passenger  fares 
within  her  boundaries  to  two  cents  a  mile.  To  this,  the  Business  Men's 
League  of  St.  Louis  filed  a  complaint  with  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission,  stating  that  a  discrimination  had  been  created  against 
St.  Louis.  The  Federal  board  had  made  most  of  the  interstate  pas- 
senger fares  in  the  central  portion  of  the  country  average  two  and  one- 
half  cents.  This  made  the  fare  from  Chicago  to  St.  Louis  (in  Missouri) 
$7.50,  while  the  fare  from  Chicago  to  East  St.  Louis  (directly  across 
the  river,  but  in  Illinois)  only  $5.62.  A  similar  complaint  was  received 
from  Keokuk,  Iowa,  also  just  across  the  Mississippi  from  Illinois. 
After  reviewing  these  complaints  the  Federal  Commission  held  that 
two  and  four-tenths  cents  was  a  reasonable  rate  for  interstate  fares  in 
this  territory  and  required  the  railroads  to  remove  the  discrimination 
against  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  and  Keokuk,  Iowa.  The  decision  was  limited, 
however,  to  the  points  involved  in  the  complaint.  The  supplemental 
report  covers  all  points  in  Illinois. 

' '  In  our  original  report  in  this  proceeding,'  Commissioner  Daniels 
says,  'it  was  shown  how  the  lower  state  fares  within  Illinois  furnished 
a  means  whereby  passengers  could  and  did  defeat  the  lawfully  estab- 
lished interstate  fares  between  St.  Louis  and  Illinois  points.  This  was 
done  by  using  interstate  tickets  purchased  at  interstate  fares  from  St. 
Louis  to  an  east  side  point  in  Illinois,  and  thence  continuing  the  journey 
to  any  Illinois  destination  on  a  ticket  purchased  at  the  lower  state  fare. 


Regulation  253 

upon  local  or  state  conditions.  And  this  despite  the 
fact  that  the  vast  majority  of  freight  traffic  is  interstate, 
rather  than  intrastate.  The  majority  of  the  grain  from 
the  farm  lands  of  Nebraska  or  Minnesota  is  not  des- 
tined for  Omaha  in  the  one  case,  or  Minneapolis  in 
the  other;  yet  these  sovereign  states  take  upon  their 
solemn  shoulders  the  regulating  of  grain  rates  —  to 
the  ultimate  discomfiture  and  cost  of  the  other  portions 
of  the  land. 

I  have  but  to  refer  you  to  Justice  Hughes's  decision 
in  the  so-called  Minnesota  rate  case.  He  showed  how 
this  arbitrary  local  outgrowth  of  the  obsolete  doctrine 

"  *  We  deem  it  advisable  to  point  out  that  the  interstate  fares  between 
St.  Louis  and  Keokuk  on  the  one  hand  and  interior  Illinois  points  on 
the  other,  made  on  a  per  mile  basis  of  two  and  four-tenths  cents,  would 
likewise  be  subject  to  defeat  if  the  state  fares  to  and  from  interior 
Illinois  points  intermediate  to  the  passengers'  ultimate  destination  be 
made  upon  a  basis  lower  than  the  fares  applying  between  St.  Louis  or 
Keokuk  and  such  Illinois  destination.  It  would  be  necessary  merely 
for  the  passenger  who  desired  to  defeat  the  interstate  fare  to  shift  the 
intermediate  point  at  which  to  purchase  his  state  ticket.  The  burden 
and  discrimination  which  a  lower  basis  of  fares  within  the  state  casts 
upon  the  interstate  commerce  would  not  be  removed  merely  by  an 
increase  in  the  intra-state  fares  to  and  from  the  east  bank  points. 

"'And  not  only  this  burden,  but  the  direct  undue  prejudice  to  St. 
Louis  and  Keokuk  will  also  continue  if  the  east  side  cities  while  on 
the  face  of  the  published  tariff  paying  fares  to  and  from  Illinois  points 
upon  the  same  basis  as  do  St.  Louis  and  Keokuk  can  in  practice  defeat 
such  fares  by  paying  lower  state  fares  in  the  aggregate  to  and  from 
Illinois  destination,  by  virtue  of  such  an  adjustment  of  fares.'" 

As  soon,  however,  as  the  railroads  attempted  to  put  this  edict  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  into  effect  the  state  courts  of  Illinois 
stepped  in  and  tied  their  hands.  At  the  present  time  the  matter  is  still 
involved  in  much  litigation.  And  a  man  may  buy  a  ticket  from  Chicago 
to  East  St.  Louis  for  $5.62,  and  for  ten-cent  trolley  fare  cross  the  Eads 
bridge  into  St.  Louis.  This  is,  of  course,  a  great  injustice  to  the  rail- 
roads—  an  inequality  which  must  sooner  or  later  be  adjusted,  and 
the  sooner,  the  better. 


254  The  Railroad  Problem 

of  states'  rights  worked  to  the  utter  and  absolute  detri- 
ment of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  And  yet  in  the  six  long 
years  while  that  case  was  pending  the  Great  Northern 
and  Northern  Pacific  companies  lost  more  than 
$3,000,000  —  a  sum  of  money  never  to  be  recovered 
from  their  shippers  —  as  a  result  of  the  state's  unsus- 
tained  reductions  in  freight  rates.1  No  better  argument 
has  ever  been  framed  for  the  nationalization  of  our 
railroads,  for  making  the  powers  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  absolute  and  supreme. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  railroaders  are  praying 
that  a  way  may  be  found  and  found  soon  for  lifting 
the  entire  authority  over  them  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
forty-five  present  state  boards  of  control  —  who  never 

1  "  A  curious  light  was  thrown  on  this  condition  in  connection  with 
the  Shreveport  rate  case.  Texas,  in  order  to  keep  Louisiana  merchants 
from  competing  in  its  markets,  had  fixed  a  number  of  rates  within  the 
State  applying  between  points  of  production  and  jobbing  centers  and 
markets  in  the  direction  of  the  Louisiana  line.  These  rates  were  sub- 
stantially lower  than  the  interstate  rates  from  Shreveport,  Louisiana, 
to  the  same  Texas  points  of  consumption.  The  United  States  Supreme 
Court  sustained  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  in  raising  the 
Texas  rates  so  that  Louisiana  business  men  could  get  a  square  deal. 

"Thereafter  Senator  Shepard,  of  Texas,  introduced  a  bill  in  the 
Senate  to  abolish  the  doctrine  of  the  Shreveport  case.  In  a  hearing  on 
this  bill  it  developed  that  while  Louisiana  was  protesting  against  rate 
discrimination  on  the  part  of  Texas,  the  city  of  Natchez,  in  Mississippi, 
was  making  a  similar  protest  against  the  action  of  Louisiana  in  fixing 
rates  which  excluded  the  business  men  of  Natchez  from  the  Louisiana 
markets.  Moreover,  one  of  those  who  appeared  in  favor  of  the  bill 
was  Judge  Prentice,  chairman  of  the  Virginia  Railroad  Commission, 
which  was  at  that  time  complaining  that  the  state  rate-fixers  in  North 
Carolina  had  discriminated  against  Virginia  cities. 

"  In  short,  an  appalling  condition  of  interstate  warfare  was  revealed 
that  was  hurting  business  generally  and  killing  railroad  develop- 
ment."— Harold  Kellock  in  The  Century  Magazine. 


Regulation  255 

have  agreed  and  who  apparently  can  never  be  made  to 
agree  on  any  one  form  of  procedure  —  and  placing  it  in 
the  hands  of  the  very  competent  regulating  board  down 
at  Washington,  enlarged  and  strengthened  for  its  new 
burdens.  The  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  has 
never  shown  a  tendency  toward  freak  rulings.  Its  time 
has  been  taken  with  genuinely  important  matters.  On 
these  it  has  raised  itself  to  its  present  high  degree  of 
efficiency.  It  has  shown  itself  capable  of  studying  the 
details  of  complicated  transportation  problems  and  ren- 
dering decisions  of  great  practical  sense. 

But  the  scope,  and  therefore  the  efficiency,  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  are  closely  hemmed 
in  by  existing  laws.  The  latest  " crisis"  between  the 
railroads  and  the  four  great  brotherhoods  of  their  em- 
ployees brought  this  limitation  sharply  to  the  fore.  It 
is  therefore  equally  essential  that  the  power  and  scope 
of  the  Federal  commission  be  broadened  as  well  as 
being  made  superior  to  those  of  the  state  regulating 
boards.1  And  it  is  gratifying  to  note  the  progress  that 

1  When  one  comes  to  consider  the  possibility  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  being  made  supreme  in  these  matters  of  railroad 
regulation,  he  must  assume  that  the  members  of  this  Commission  are 
to  be  held  immune  from  interference;  save  by  the  actual  and  necessary 
processes  of  the  higher  courts.  The  objection  by  Senator  Cummins,  of 
Iowa,  recently  to  the  Senate's  affirmation  of  the  reappointment  of  Com- 
missioner Winthrop  M.  Daniels,  is  in  this  connection,  most  illuminating 
and  disquieting.  Senator  Cummins  was  careful  to  say  that  he  held  no 
quarrel  against  Mr.  Daniel's  character  or  personality.  He  added  that 
he  would  be  glad  to  vote  for  a  confirmation  of  appointment  to  any  other 
government  position.  Unfortunately,  Commissioner  Daniels  had  written 
several  of  the  commission's  opinions  advocating  recent  raises  in 
railroad  rates.  For  this  offense  the  Senator  from  Iowa  sought  to  punish 
him  by  blocking  his  reappointment.  Fortunately,  however,  Mr.  Cum- 
mins carefully  conceived  revenge  failed  of  execution.  The  Senate 


256  The  Railroad  Problem 

President  Wilson  already  is  making  toward  the  first  of 
these  necessary  immediate  reliefs  to  the  railroads  of 
the  land. 

If  President  Wilson  shall  succeed  in  persuading  Con- 
gress that  the  entire  control  of  the  railroads  should  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  an  enlarged  and  strengthened 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  he  will  have  earned 
the  thanks  of  every  man  who  has  made  an  honest  study 
into  the  situation.  Such  a  commission,  clothed  with  the 
proper  powers,  could  and  would  do  much  not  only 
toward  relieving  the  railroads'  immediate  necessities 
in  regard  to  both  physical  betterment  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  their  pay-rolls,  but  in  enabling  them  to  grasp 
some  of  the  opportunities  which  we  have  outlined  in 
previous  chapters  —  opportunities  requiring  a  generous 
outpouring  of  money  at  the  beginning.  If  I  mistake 
not,  public  sentiment  is  going  to  demand  that,  if  the 
railroads  be  granted  the  relief  of  unified  regulation, 
they  shall  be  prompt  in  their  acceptance  of  at  least 
some  of  these  great  avenues  of  development. 

We  have  heard  much  in  late  years  of  the  banker 
control  of  our  railroads  and  of  absentee  landlordism 
in  their  management.  The  two  things  are  not  to  be 
confused.  Banker  control  is  not,  in  itself,  a  bad  thing. 
Absentee  landlordism  invariably  is.  There  are  good 
stretches  of  railroad  in  every  part  of  the  country  that 
today  are  failing  to  render  not  alone  the  proper  income 

promptly  and  generously  confirmed  the  President's  appointment.  But 
the  episode  shows  clearly  a  great  potential  danger  to  which  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Commission,  as  well  as  all  other  regulatory  boards,  are  sub- 
ject if  their  honest  opinions,  as  expressed  in  decisions,  run  counter  to 
the  whim  of  popular  opinion. 


Regulation  257 

returns  to  their  owners  but,  what  is  worse,  service  to 
their  communities,  because  of  this  great  canker,  this 
lack  of  immediate  executive  control  and  understanding. 
And  it  is  significant  in  this  close  connection  of  two 
phases  of  the  railroad  situation  that  it  was  the  banker 
control  in  New  York  of  the  one-time  Harriman  system 
—  the  Union  Pacific,  the  Southern  Pacific,  the  Oregon 
Short  Line,  etc. —  that  gave  to  it  at  one  fell  swoop,  five 
presidents  —  one  at  San  Francisco,  one  at  Omaha,  one 
at  Portland,  one  at  Tucson,  and  one  at  Houston  —  each 
a  young,  vigorous  man  equipped  with  power  and  abil- 
ity. The  good  effects  of  that  far-seeing  move  —  that 
instant  wiping  out  of  the  charges  of  absentee  land- 
lordism that  were  being  lodged  against  the  Harriman 
system  —  are  still  being  felt. 

It  is  not  banker  control  that  is  essentially  bad  for 
our  railroads.  It  is  banker  control  together  with  an 
utter  lack  of  vision,  that  has  cost  them  so  many  times 
their  two  greatest  potential  assets  —  public  interest  and 
public  sympathy.  Banker  control  plus  vision  may 
readily  prove  itself  the  best  form  of  control  for  our 
carriers.  And  that  our  bankers  do  not  entirely  lack 
vision  may  be  argued  by  the  far-seeing  and  opportunity- 
grasping  way  in  which  our  bankers  of  the  newer  school 
are  today  reaching  for  American  development  in  South 
America,  in  China,  in  the  Philippines,  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  world. 

Back  of  the  President,  back  of  the  Newlands  com- 
mittee and  its  rather  dazzling  sense  of  importance,  sits 
the  nation.  It  is  far  superior  to  any  mere  committees 
of  its  own  choosing  and  it  is  weighing  the  entire  railroad 


258  The  Railroad  Problem 

situation  as  perhaps  it  never  before  has  been  weighed. 
It  is  considering  the  enlargement  and  the  strengthening 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  —  together 
with  it  a  feasible  method  for  the  Federal  incorporation 
of  our  roads  —  this  last  a  vital  necessity  in  the  mind  of 
any  man  who  has  ever  tried  to  finance  an  issue  of 
securities  for  an  interstate  property  with  each  separate 
state  trying  to  place  its  own  regulations  —  in  many 
cases  both  onerous  and  erratic  —  upon  them.  With  the 
spirit  of  Congress  willing,  there  still  remains  the  very 
large  question  of  how  far  its  power  would  extend,  in 
attempting  either  to  reduce  the  power  of  the  state 
boards  or  to  make  them  more  amenable  to  the  Federal 
commission.  Our  states  have  been  most  jealous  of 
their  sovereign  rights.  And  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that 
their  aid  and  cooperation  —  so  very  necessary  to  the 
success  of  the  entire  ultimate  project  of  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  our  railroads  —  is  not  to  be  obtained  by  the 
mere  wishing.1 

1  "  No  one  who  has  traveled  about  the  world  will  seriously  contend 
that  there  is  any  other  country  where  the  quality  and  quantity  of  rail 
transportation  is  so  good  or  so  abundant  as  in  the  United  States.  In 
most  European  countries  rail  transportation  is  furnished  by  the  govern- 
ment at  great  cost  to  the  public,  both  directly  in  the  form  of  heavier 
taxes  and  indirectly  in  the  form  of  high  rates.  In  this  country  it  is  fur- 
nished by  the  investment  of  private  capital.  This  capital  is  supplied 
by  about  2,000,000  persons.  It  is  absolutely  at  the  mercy  not  only  of 
the  Federal  Government,  but,  within  their  boundaries,  of  the  legisla- 
tures of  forty-eight  States.  How  much  it  may  earn  depends  upon 
the  whim  of  these  masters.  How  much  it  may  lose  has  never  been 
determined;  for  when  a  certain  point  is  reached  the  courts  step  in  and 
administer  the  bankrupt's  business. 

"  Last  year  the  railways  of  the  country  earned  about  $1,000,000,000 
net,  a  greater  sum  than  ever  before  in  their  history.  It  was  less  than 
six  per  cent  on  railroad  property  devoted  to  the  use  of  the  public. 


Regulation  259 

President  Wilson  has  set  the  beginnings  for  the  plan 
and  set  them  well.  As  I  write  it  is  still  up  to  Congress 
to  undo  its  mischievous  legislation  which,  if  it  is  made 
to  include  an  eight-hour  day,  should  render  a  genuine 
eight-hour  day,  one  applicable  to  every  class  of  railroad 
employee  —  although  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a 
railroad  superintendent  or  general  manager  or  presi- 
dent quitting  at  the  end  of  the  short-term  service.  They 
are  schooled  to  harder  things. 

And  with  the  eight-hour  day  must  come  these  other 
things  to  which  we  have  already  referred,  not  once  but 
several  times.  First  among  these  are  the  matters  so 

"The  record  earnings  of  the  railroads  in  1916  are  being  used  and 
will  be  used  to  urge  Government  ownership.  But  how  about  the  lean 
years?  If  in  the  most  prosperous  year  of  their  lives  the  railroads  of 
the  country  cannot  earn  six  per  cent,  what  happens  in  poor  years? 
Ask  the  courts.  They  know. 

"  It  is  possible  now,  by  right  administration,  to  make  particular 
railroads  yield  liberal  returns  to  investors;  but  under  Government 
ownership  there  could  be  no  such  incentive  to  careful  management; 
the  bad  would  be  lumped  with  the  good;  the  profits  in  one  quarter 
would  be  required  to  meet  the  deficits  in  another;  the  Government 
would  have  to  assume  all  necessary  capital,  and  this  would  by  so  much 
impair  the  Government's  borrowing  power. 

"  If  the  people  of  this  country  can  once  be  brought  to  appreciate 
the  importance  of  maintaining  the  quality  and  expanding  the  quantity 
of  rail  transportation  they  will  see  to  it  that  private  enterprise  is  sup- 
ported, not  hampered,  in  furnishing  this  most  vital  of  public  services. 
They  will  manifest  overwhelmingly  a  wish  that  the  roads  be  set  free 
from  the  conflicting  authorities  of  forty-eight  masters  and  be  controlled 
by  only  one,  greater  than  all  the  rest  put  together.  They  will  demand 
that  the  Federal  Government  allow  such  rates  as  will  permit  earnings 
sufficient  to  attract  private  capital  actually  needed  to  supply  public 
service.  They  will  insist  that  the  Federal  control  and  regulation  of 
transportation  shall  be  as  constructive  and  helpful  as  Federal  control 
and  regulation  of  banking.  It  is  painful  to  look  at  the  Federal  Reserve 
system  and  then  to  contemplate  the  plight  into  which  haphazard  regula- 
tion has  brought  the  railroads." — The  New  York  Sun. 


260  The  Railroad  Problem 

closely  correlated  in  President  Wilson's  program  that 
they  cannot  be  separated  from  the  eight-hour  day: 
arbitration  —  compulsory  arbitration,  if  you  please  — 
the  strengthening  of  the  power  of  the  government  to 
seize  the  railroads  and  operate  them  in  a  time  of  na- 
tional panic  or  military  necessity,  the  enlargement  of 
the  powers  and  the  personnel  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission.  With  all  these  things  accom- 
plished, and  the  situation  just  so  much  strengthened,  it 
will  then  become  the  duty  of  the  railroads  to  reach  out 
more  generously  toward  their  opportunities  for  further 
development  as  the  transport  service  of  a  great  and 
growing  people.  It  will  be  necessary  for  them  to 
attract,  to  train,  to  reward  new  executives  of  every 
sort;  to  further  their  credit  by  deserving  credit,  to 
show  outwardly  in  a  more  potent  way  the  thing 
that  so  many  of  them  have  believed  they  inwardly 
possess  —  true  efficiency,  both  for  service  and  for 
growth. 

Please  do  not  forget  this  great  point  of  growth  — 
of  development,  you  may  prefer  to  put  it.  In  my  mind, 
men,  institutions,  nations,  even  railroads  never  stand 
still;  they  either  grow,  or  else  they  decline,  they  shrink, 
they  die.  But  the  Railroad,  as  the  greatest  servant  of 
a  great  people,  cannot  die  without  bringing  death  to 
the  nation  itself.  Therefore  he  must  grow.  He  must 
plan.  He  must  announce  his  plans.  He  must  bring 
Public  Sentiment  to  his  aid.  Law  can  do  many  things 
—  but  few  of  these  latter  ones.  Public  Sentiment  may 
accomplish  every  one  of  them,  and  almost  in  a  crack  of 
a  finger.  No  wonder  that  Capital  —  that  conservative 


Regulation  261 

fellow  —  longs  to  have  him  stand  at  the  bedside  of  the 
Railroad. 

The  sick  man  is  not  without  his  ambitions  —  you  may 
be  sure  of  that  He  sees  his  opportunities,  perhaps 
more  clearly  than  ever  before  in  the  course  of  his  long 
life.  He  is  anxious  to  be  up  and  at  them.  But  before 
this  can  be  done,  some  of  these  things,  which  we  have 
outlined  so  briefly  here,  will  have  to  come  to  pass. 
There  are  reckonings  to  be  made,  huge  doctors'  bills 
to  be  met — and  the  American  public  will  have  to  help 
meet  them. 

The  alternative? 

There  are  many  panaceas  suggested;  but  I  fear  that 
most  of  these  are  but  nostrums.  Ingenious,  many  of 
them  are,  nevertheless.  And  some  of  them  come  from 
men  who  speak  with  both  authority  and  experience. 
One  man  proposes  to  have  the  entire  Federal  taxes  paid 
through  the  railroad,  which,  in  turn,  would  recoup  itself 
through  its  freight  and  passenger  rates.  He  makes  an 
interesting  case  for  himself.  Another  suggests  a  Fed- 
eral holding  company  for  all  the  railroads  of  the 
United  States  and  makes  his  suggestion  read  so  cleverly 
and  so  ingeniously  that  you  all  but  forget  that  he  is 
drawing  only  a  thin  veil  over  government  ownership. 
Of  government  ownership  I  am  not  going  to  treat  at 
this  time;  not  more  than  to  say  that  to  almost  all 
American  railroaders  —  big  and  little,  employers  and 
employed,  stockholders  and  bondholders  —  it  repre- 
sents little  less  than  death  itself  to  the  sick  man  of 
American  business.  In  my  own  opinion  it  is,  at  the 
least,  a  major  operation  —  an  operation  whose  success 
is  extremely  dubious. 


INDEX 


Adamson  Bill,  object  and  effect  of, 
235-239. 

Aliens,  value  of,  in  railroad  work, 
74  ff. 

American  Railway  Association, 
cooperation  of,  with  govern- 
ment, 211. 

Arbitration,  compulsory,  240,  258 ; 
in  wage  disputes,  57  ff. 

Architectural  problems  in  relation 
to  increase  of  passenger  traffic, 
107  ff. 

Atlantic  coast,  service  of  railroads 
in  defense  of,  192. 

Automobile:  effect  of  the,  on  rail- 
road traffic,  134  ff. ;  as  a  freight 
feeder  of  the  railroad,  158;  op- 
erated on  railroad  tracks,  151. 

Betterments  and  additions,  amount 
needed  for,  18  ff.,  22,  26.  See 
also  Railroads. 

Branch-lines  and  their  relation  to 
automobile  competition,  142;  op- 
portunities neglected  by  rail- 
roads, 152,  156. 

Brotherhoods,  90  ff.;  influence  of, 
on  wages,  95,  n. ;  strength  of, 
238.  See  also  Labor. 

Canals,    advantages    of,    to    rail- 
roads, 176. 
Capital,  4;  relation  of,  to  earnings, 

*7- 

Conductor,  efficiency  of  the  pres- 
ent-day, 45. 

Cooperation  of  public  vital  to  rail- 
roads, 179. 

Cost  of  living,  how  influenced  by 
railroads,  6. 


De  Luxe  trains,  economic  wisdom 
of,  228. 


Deficits,  how  met,    18.     See  also 

Railroads. 
Droege,  John  A.,  211,  214. 

Efficiency,   12,  15;   relation  of,  to 

economy,  13. 
Eight-hour    day    legislation,    220, 

tri236'-2-57' 

Electricity  as  motive  power,   105, 

125,  129;  advantages  of,  113  ff.; 
in  Boston,  114;  in  Chicago,  117; 
in  Philadelphia,  119;  to  freight 
traffic,  131;  to  railroad  systems 
as  a  whole,  129,  132;  to  sub- 
urban systems,  121 ;  transforma- 
tion of  gravity  pull  into  motive 
energy,  131. 

Elliott,  Howard,  179. 

Embargoes:  cause  of,  9;  effect  of, 
15,  159;  motor  truck,  value  of, 
in  case  of,  160. 

Emerson,  Harrington,  99. 

Employees,  number  of,  in  interests 
allied  to  railroads,  5;  number 
of,  on  steam  railroads,  5. 

Engineer,  efficiency  of  the  present- 
day,  33  ff. 

Engineering  problems  in  relation 
to  increase  of  passenger  traffic, 
109. 

Excess-fare  trains,  222,  226 ;  pend- 
ing inauguration  of,  on  western 
railroads,  227. 

Extensions,  difficulty  of  raising 
funds  for,  26,  n. 

Freight  and  passenger  traffic,  eco- 
nomic difference  between,  232. 

Freight  cars,  number  and  condi- 
tion of,  in  use,  24;  number 
needed  per  year,  22,  n.  See  also 
Railroads. 


263 


264 


Index 


Freight  feeder  for  railroad,  auto- 
mobile and  motor  truck  recom- 
mended as,  158,  162. 

Freight  gateways  as  housing 
places  of  affiliated  industries, 
166. 

Freight  terminals,  development 
of,  169. 

Full-Crew  Bill,  the,  219;  legisla- 
tion regarding,  247. 

German  railroads,  efficiency  of, 
iSS. 

Government  ownership,  259. 
Grade  crossings,  extent  of  removal 

of,  20-21. 

Grain,  cost  of  transportation  of,  8. 
Grand   Central   Station,  the,   107, 

no. 
Gray,  Carl  R.,  179,  211. 

Harriman,  E.  H.,  179. 
Harrison,  Fairfax,  211. 
Hill,  James  J.,  19,  21,  179. 
Hine,  Major  Charles,  212. 
Holden,  Hale,  179. 
Hustis,  James  H.,  179. 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 
effectiveness  of,  253 ;  enlarge- 
ment of  powers  of,  258. 

Labor,  bonus  payments,  97  ff. ; 
brotherhoods,  affiliation  of  labor 
with,  90;  improvement  in  qual- 
ity of,  31;  relations  of  organ- 
ized, with  the  railroads,  30,  56; 
unorganized  labor,  interests  and 
responsibilities  of,  62  ff. ;  wage 
adjustments  between  railroads 
and  employees,  56  ff. ;  wages  of, 
92  ff. 

Labor  question,  the,  3,  4. 

Legislation,  conflict  of  state,  245  ff. 

Liquor,  opposition  of  railroads  to 
its  use  by  employees,  31. 

Locomotives,  number  ordered  per 
year,  24,  n. 

Markham,  Charles  H.,  179,  211. 
Mellen,  Charles  S.,  196. 


Military  Reserve  Corps  among 
railroad  men,  212. 

Negro,  value  of  the,  in  railroad 

work,  73. 
Nonunion   labor,   employment  of, 

238. 
Noonan,  William  T.,  179. 

Operation,  what  it  involves,  18. 
See  also  Railroads. 

Pacific  coast,  service  of  railroads 
in  defense  of,  200. 

Panic  of  1907,  effect  of,  26. 

Passenger  and  freight  traffic,  eco- 
nomic difference  between,  232. 

Passenger-mile,  statistics  of,  17; 
unit  of  traffic,  17. 

Passenger  rates,  increases  in,  220; 
prospects  for  future  increase  in, 
229,  233.  See  also  Railroads. 

Passenger  service,  state  of,  25,  n. 
See  also  Passenger-mile. 

Pullman  cars,  comparison  of,  with 
European  cars,  224. 

Pullman  Company,  control  by,  of 
sleeping  and  parlor  cars,  224. 

Railroad  fares,  effect  of  automo- 
bile on  rate  of,  139  ff. 

Railroads,  and  national  defense, 
181;  army  operation  of,  in  case 
of  war,  207;  as  military  lines  of 
communication,  191  ff.;  banker 
control  of,  254;  betterments  and 
additions,  expenditures  for,  18; 
capitalization  of,  14;  car  famine 
now  existing,  22,  n,  23 ;  condi- 
tion of,  in  case  of  present-day 
war,  185;  in  Middle  West  and 
South,  19;  congestion,  effect  of, 
on,  15;  cooperation  of  public 
vital  to,  179;  cost  of  living,  how 
affected  by,  6 ;  credit  of,  affected, 
16;  debt  of  American  farmer 
to,  8;  deficits,  how  met,  18;  de- 
preciation fund,  an  asset,  when, 
28;  development  extent  of,  yet 
needed,  21 ;  difficulties  under 


Index 


265 


which  they  labor,  2 ;  double- 
track,  military  value  of,  202 ; 
needed,  21 ;  earnings  of,  in  rela- 
tion to  capital,  17;  efficiency,  as 
applied  to,  12;  emergencies, 
ability  of,  to  meet,  214;  em- 
ployees, number  of,  on,  5 ;  equip- 
ment, 25;  federal  incorporation 
of,  256;  flexibility  of  equipment 
of,  210;  freight  and  passenger 
traffic,  economic  difference  be- 
tween, 232;  German  military 
use  of,  188;  governmental  op- 
eration of,  in  case  of  war,  206; 
inadequacy  of,  to  meet  needs  of 
nation,  15,  n. ;  labor  and  tax, 
31  ff. ;  locomotives,  condition  of, 
in  operation  by,  25,  and  note; 
losses,  extent  of,  29;  necessity 
and  value  of,  to  the  country, 
217;  operating,  cost  of,  in  rela- 
tion to  capital  and  earnings,  17; 
opportunity  of,  105 ;  passenger 
rates,  part  played  by,  in  cost  of 
operation,  232 ;  part  played  by, 
in  Civil  War,  182;  possibilities 
of  development  for,  151  ff.,  158, 
163,  166,  171,  176;  receiverships 
of,  10-12;  regulation  of,  235, 
240  ff. ;  rehabilitation,  extent  of, 
needed,  29;  relations  of,  with 
employees,  30;  resources  of, 
need  for  study  of,  177;  service 
of,  in  defense  of  Pacific  coast, 
200;  service  of,  in  defense  of 
Atlantic  coast,  192;  superiority 
of,  in  1898,  over  those  in  Civil 
War,  184;  seizure  of,  by  gov- 
ernment, 258;  trained  officials 
necessary  for  efficient  handling 
of,  208 ;  upkeep,  failure  of,  to 
meet,  23  ;  value  of,  to  the  nation, 
in  time  of  war,  181;  wealth  of 
the  nation,  how  affected  by,  6 ; 
See  also  Labor. 

Rate  increases,  need  of,  219. 

Regulation  of  railroads,  4,  235; 
confusion  resulting  from  present 
methods,  237;  essential  and  ad- 
vantageous, 241  ff. ;  unified,  240. 


Section  boss,  the,  62  ff.  See  also 
Labor. 

Standard  unit  container,  a  factor 
in  freight  traffic,  163.  See  also 
Railroads  s.  <v.  "Possibilities  of 
development." 

State  railroad  commissions,  in- 
effectiveness of,  244. 

Station  agent,  the,  62  ff.,  77  ff.  See 
also  Labor. 

Supervisor,  the,  66.  See  also  Labor. 

Telegraph,  value  of  the,  in  time 

of  war,  181. 
Telephone,  effectiveness  of  the,  in 

national  crisis,  181. 
Terminals,  development  of,  106. 
Ton-mile,  statistics  of,  17;  unit  of 

traffic,  17. 
Tonnage-mile  costs,  101.    See  also 

Labor;  Wages. 
Track  foreman,  the,  62  ff.  See  also 

Labor. 

Traffic  tides  and  congestion,  217. 
Trains,       legislation       regulating 

length  of,  101,  248. 

Union  Pacific  Railroad,  military 
value  of,  200. 

Vanderlip,  Frank  A.,  32,  n. 
"'Vital     area"    of    country,     how 
served  by  railroads,  192,  195. 

Wage  adjustments  and  arbitra- 
tion, 56  ff. 

Wages,  bonus  payments,  97,  102; 
hour  basis,  the,  100;  maximum 
and  minimum  rates  of,  240;  mile 
basis,  the,  100;  "piece-rate" 
principle,  the,  looff. ;  rate  of, 
discussed,  92  ff.  See  also  Labor. 

Waterways:  development  of  in- 
land, 171;  objectionable  provis- 
ions of  navigation  law,  172; 
vessels,  need  of,  175. 

Wealth  of  nation,  how  affected  by 
railroads,  6. 

Willard,  Daniel,  179,  211. 


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